Once they were outside of the hospital's wards, Severus apparated them to Troyes — Liz had assumed they'd need to floo, but of course Severus had dropped by at some point, made that easier. Troyes was a much smaller town than Paris, obviously, but the magical community here was nearly as well-established, the settlement originally founded back in the Roman period. It'd been a major centre of commerce and 'industry' through the mediaeval period, and while it'd gradually faded in prominence on the muggle side it'd remained one of the primary urban enclaves of magical France, where a large fraction of French craftsmanship was produced. And as Liz knew from British politics, the craft guilds tended to be more radical than the academic ones — Troyes had practically lit up during the Revolution, one of the most intense hotbeds of Communalist activity in the country, the site of some of the worst of the violence during the unrest.
A book Liz had read identified massacres that'd taken place in Troyes during the period — from the start of Communalist organising in the 20s through the end of the ICW occupation in the 50s — by specific neighbourhood and year, sometimes even month and year, because there were just too many to refer to by the name of the city alone. Because the Revolution in France had gotten seriously fucking nasty at points.
Funnily enough, the muggle and magical sides of Troyes had the same vibe of an odd mix of old and modern. They'd appeared at an apparation point near a church of some kind — centuries old, with all the super complicated Gothic detailing all over the place — stepping out into the heart of the muggle town. Not all of them, but a lot of the buildings looked fucking ancient, narrow wood-faced structures crammed tight together along the street, some of the cross-bracing posts and the crumbling plaster here and there like the drawings of old mediaeval towns she'd seen in books, like these same buildings might have been standing all that time. But, at the same time, the windows all had modern glass in them, and a lot of the ground floors had been retouched with modern glass and metalwork, electric lighting, familiar branded stores and even fast food places. And there were the cars on the street of course, traffic signals and the like. It was a funny contrast, like, they'd left the mediaeval town alone and just slowly grafted more modern stuff onto it — not entirely unusual in some places around Europe, the centre of Guildford was sort of like this, just, most towns had gotten completely fucked up in one war or another between now and then...
After a little bit of wandering around, looking for a place to stall until it was time for her appointment, they decided to step through and check out the magical side — so Liz got to see the magical version of the same funny old/modern blend, with the added detail of Troyes being very much a neocommunalist city. The entrance brought them straight into a town square of some kind, ringed with newer-looking buildings of brick and plaster, lots of local government and guild offices and the like. (Liz remembered reading that the old square had been completely levelled during the British/Dutch invasion.) At the centre of the square was a stone statue — a star cupped by a bundle of feathers and an oak branch, the same design from the flag but in three dimensions — as they passed closer Liz noticed that the surface was absolutely covered with inscribed names. War memorial of some kind, obviously. Some of the buildings were pretty busy, guildhouses and the regional party office holding lunches maybe, streams of people criss-crossing through the square. Severus was tall enough to part the crowd, Liz just followed behind in his wake.
The city was significantly quieter outside of the square, thankfully. The magical side was pretty similar to the muggle side in some ways, with the same narrow wood-faced buildings — the aged-looking crumbling plaster in places might even be the same material, dating from the same time. The magical side looked even more like it'd been transported out of its time somehow, much less modern materials, the ground levels the same wood and plaster and brick as everywhere else, a lot of the windows just with wooden shutters. (She assumed everyone had environmental wards anyway.) Of course there were no electric lights around — there were lampposts here and there, but they'd presumably work through some kind of magic — and obviously no cars, the narrow, winding cobblestone or brick streets seemingly designed for foot traffic.
Even besides the more archaic parts they'd hung on to, the magical character of the place was obvious. On the muggle side, the old buildings were only three and rarely four levels high, but here five or six was more common, sometimes even taller, thin little towers poking up here and there, the rows of buildings casting the streets into shadow. Liz noticed that, while they'd mostly kept with the same aesthetics, the materials on the upper levels seemed newer, the yellowing and crumbling of the plaster in places absent above a certain height, the structures obviously added on to over time. Curiously, it seemed they'd kept the early foundations, adjacent buildings very close together but not conjoined, but sometimes hadn't bothered keeping the buildings separate on the upper levels, up there seeming to run in a continuous structure all along the block, sometimes splitting to let an alley go through but sometimes continuing on regardless, little tunnels leading into the block beyond.
Those upper levels seemed to be mostly residential, more efficiently packing flats into the space, probably dating to before the Revolution, when the workers here had been crammed into pretty shitty living conditions. Presumably it'd all been remodelled at some point — France was one of the Communalist countries that seized a lot of property to convert into public housing, so. Some of the remodelling was super obvious from the outside, more modern alchemical ceramic showing itself here or there, balconies built leaning out over the street (further blocking out the sun), the metal handrails formed into oak branches or sprigs of lavender or chain links woven together with stalks of flax (an old symbol for solidarity between craft guilds long predating the Revolution), often crawling thick with living vines. None of that would have been there before, she was certain, must all be new. Signs had been touched up with modern ceramic, posters put up here and there — hours for shops and offices and whatever, listing vacancies in the residences and who to get in contact with, public announcements to do with news or how to apply for services or just local events (concerts, block parties, pick-up games, a local council thing), some were obviously political, either the locals displaying their allegiances or propaganda related to one campaign or another going on. Some places had flags flying, tacked up in windows or hanging off of balconies, some French and some Communalist, but also various other unfamiliar colours, Liz assumed various political or minority groups, impossible to say.
Liz gave one flag a double-take: a dark blue field, in the middle a silvery crescent moon laid open side down, under it a bundle of lilac blossoms. That was a lesbian symbol, she knew — well, queer women in general, not necessarily just lesbians, but whatever. She'd come across it reading up about the Communalists, they tended to have a whole thing about rights for minority groups and all, including sexual minorities. Communalist countries had started legalising marriage for same-sex couples all the way back during the original movement in the 30s, queers themselves organising within the Revolution was a big part of the reason why. (It was also legal in a lot of conservative countries in the ICW now, Liz thought that was mostly copying the Communalists...or else the Egyptians, who'd had it forever.) Queers in magical Britain weren't really organised the same way they were in Communalist countries, or even on the muggle side, it wasn't a thing back home.
She glanced that way a couple more times as they passed, trying to make out the signs... A café and communal library, looked like. There was a sign up about book club meetings, um, okay then. Liz was vaguely curious, but she didn't want to check it out with Severus right here (too awkward), she quick noted the name of the street they were on and kept walking. She could come back later.
After some time aimlessly wandering around, they stepped into a quiet-looking café. It was somewhat dark inside, thanks to the balconies shading the street, most of the light from (magical) candles set up in fixtures here and there. Most of the surfaces and furniture were wood, the walls littered with ink or pencil drawings, photographs, newspaper clippings, whatever. As they walked in, a younger woman leaning against the bar chatting with an older woman behind it — this café doubled as a pub, apparently, which Liz knew wasn't uncommon on the magical side — straightened and turned to them. They were open, but the kitchen staff went home for lunch, so they weren't serving any real food at the moment — that was fine, they hadn't planned on ordering real food anyway.
Besides, the four of them, a couple over there, and one lone man with a newspaper were the only people in the place. This was pretty much exactly what they were looking for.
The coffee was also surprisingly good, turned out. Liz was honestly faintly embarrassed when Severus made a point of telling the waitress she was a Seer right away — she didn't know what that reaction was about, really, but whatever — and she recommended a particular kind of coffee on the menu. There were only a few different options for coffee beans (tended to be less diverse than tea), but this one here was grown in Sicily — Liz was pretty sure coffee was a tropical plant, Sicily should be outside of its range, they must be cheating with magic. The waitress wouldn't say it was the best option flavour-wise, necessarily, but the labour conditions associated with its production were the best of the lot, so it would give her the best odds of avoiding picking something up.
Severus didn't like it much — his second cup a bit later was one of the other options — but Liz thought it was really fucking good. Like, maybe the taste wasn't actually that much better than any other coffee she'd had before? Hard to say, coffee had a pretty complex taste to it to begin with, even without bringing Seer nonsense into it. But, maybe just not having bad psychometric echoes interfering with tasting it properly was all that did it, because with her first sip she actually got those intense pleasant tingles through her mouth, very rich and heavy and, just, ugh. It was great, that was all.
Liz had a feeling that her reaction was kind of obvious. There was the amusement from Severus, of course, but the waitress actually copied out the place's information for her, how to contact the supplier they got it from, which was nice of her. No reason to (silently) laugh at her, Severus, finding things that didn't fuck with her for Seer reasons was really great sometimes...
They spent a couple hours just stalling in the café, reading and sipping at coffee. Liz hadn't wanted to bring her bag, didn't want it to get in the way during the exams and stuff, but Severus had brought along some of her Competency materials for her, so. The waitress noticed what she was studying, when dropping by asked if she was homeschooling or something — she didn't know who they were, but she had recognised Severus's British accent, her best guess. She went to Hogwarts, actually — yes, that Hogwarts — but with how much of a mess Britain was these days she was trying to transfer out. The waitress was a little bemused that someone would want to leave such a selective school as Hogwarts, but she didn't make a point about asking after it, so Liz could pretend she hadn't noticed that. No, not in France, but lots of schools taught in French, and she was an omniglot (which was only kind of lying), so that wasn't really a problem for her, was it. The waitress didn't actually know what omniglottalism was off the top of her head, but it was more common in Britain than anywhere else, originated with the Mistwalker Clans...
At one point, Severus apparently decided they — or, more likely, Liz — should eat something, and ordered a sandwich platter thing. One of the things they were actually doing at the moment, since it didn't require any actual cooking, just a few croissants and sliced meats and cheeses and vegetables and fruits on a tray. Liz wasn't particularly hungry, but depending on how that show thing Severus had tickets for worked they might be having dinner late, so whatever, she guessed she could eat. And this specific thing probably wasn't a bad idea — letting Liz assemble her sandwich herself meant she could check if something was going to bother her for Seer reasons. It wasn't always possible to tell if something was going to be bad just touching it, but it was normally a pretty good hint, and she could always take a little nibble out of something if she wasn't sure.
Severus made a face, his mind lurching, when Liz spread some of the mustard sauce stuff on the top half of her croissant — apparently putting this stuff on a sandwich that included cucumbers was a weird thing to do? She didn't see why. He thought having anything with mustard was a problem when accompanied by coffee, for some reason. After her sandwich was gone, she'd occasionally grab a carrot stick and dunk it in the mustard sauce before casually popping it in her mouth, pretending she couldn't feel how unpleasant Severus thought that was. She didn't even like carrots (though the sauce was pretty good), she was just messing with him for fun.
He did realise that, of course, but he seemed more fondly exasperated by it than anything, so she didn't stop. No matter how mildly surreal it still was to catch Severus thinking anything fondly about her, but...
(At some point, she was sure, their relationship would stop feeling weird to her sometimes, but there was really no telling how long that was going to take.)
As they started getting into the afternoon, more people started trickling in, the activity in the café slowly increasing — but by then it was about time for them to get going anyway. Liz quick dipped into the toilet, partly to actually use it, but mostly because openly taking drugs in public didn't seem like the best idea? Marijuana and alchemical derivatives of it were perfectly legal in France — as it was pretty much everywhere in the magical world, actually — but still. It took a few minutes to dissolve and get absorbed, it didn't actually kick in until they were already a little bit down the street. Liz didn't realise how tense the dozens of minds pressing in from all directions had been making her until it suddenly wasn't anymore.
Sometimes, she really did wish she could be slightly high all the time — it made just existing out in public much less stressful. She realised that would be an unreasonable thing to do, though. Unfortunately.
The blood alchemist's place was in a somewhat quieter, less densely-populated neighbourhood. An entirely separate enclave, even, Severus apparated them over there so they didn't need to use the floo. This place was somewhat newer, Liz thought, without the narrow crammed-together mediaeval-style buildings, more modern-looking brick rowhouses and detached homes, occasionally broken up with green spaces. This neighbourhood was surprisingly green, actually, trees and/or shrubs along the wider streets, an open park here and there, glimpses of more private gardens behind the rows, like the big open spaces in the middle of the blocks at home. (Though smaller, of course, this neighbourhood not quite so ridiculously extravagant as where Liz lived in the Refuge.) The place generally looked more orderly than the city centre, streets straighter and more regular, buildings without the haphazard additions, far fewer posters and flags about.
Though fewer did not mean none — there were still some, especially in the windows of the rowhouses or the gardens of the detached homes. There were some communalist symbols about, but Liz also noticed signs and flags with a lot of blue or yellow or black. Those would be for opposition parties, but she didn't know their symbols as well, couldn't tell who was who. Wasn't really surprised that the 'nicer' neighbourhood was much less overwhelmingly Communalist than the proletarian one, that just how the class breakdown worked in magical France. In most magical countries with active (neo-)communalist movements, really...
Before long they came to a rowhouse with a wooden sign in the front garden, displaying the name Béatrice Artlette Sauvageau, master healer, potioneer, and bioalchemist. There were listed walk-in office hours, but only a couple hours twice a week, please arrange an appointment by owl or referral. Severus stopped at this one, pulling the gate open for her — apparently this was the place. Liz walked down the path through the garden, and then hesitated at the door, not sure what she was supposed to do. This was someone's house, seemed inappropriate to just walk in. There was some kind of magical doorbell, it seemed, Severus reached around her and tapped at a ceramic plate built into the wall.
A moment later the door was pulled open from the inside, revealing a casually-dressed, brown-haired boy about Liz's age. "Ah, Liz Potter!" he said, grinning. "You're right on time, come on in."
They were led into a pretty plain sitting room, which Liz guessed was supposed to be the waiting room? Carpeted and well-lit, everything in browns and blues, it was comfortable enough. It sort of looked like it could just be a normal living room in someone's house (which it technically was), but there were handmade posters on the walls listing off the different services Sauvageau did, some of it properly medical and some of it cosmetic, with pricing information for some things but not others — the French government covered everything for French citizens and proper medical care for visitors, but foreign citizens needed to pay for purely cosmetic procedures, which she guessed was fair enough. There were also some books sitting around with some more information, pictures and stuff.
Liz hope Sauvageau wasn't just taking those pictures without permission to put in her stuff, because she'd rather not be included.
The boy said he'd go tell her they were here, knocked on a door before stepping through, clicking shut behind him. Liz aimlessly wandered around the room, looking over the posters. Depending on how much of the hospital stay ended up being considered for cosmetic reasons, meaning she had to pay for it, this might actually end up being kind of expensive — if she had her conversions right, it could add up to over fifteen thousand pounds. Not that she cared, she could definitely afford it. Just, sometimes she was reminded how lucky she was to have money.
The boy stepped out again, again closing the door behind him. "Mother's looking over your tests, should just be a minute." His attention raked over her for a moment — just something Liz noticed, feeling comfortable and floaty enough that the normal uneasiness didn't come with it. "Can I get either of you anything while you wait?"
Liz frowned at the shimmers lifting off of his mind, his attention on her...what was that... "No?"
"I believe we will be fine," Severus said, feeling vaguely amused for some reason. "Béce is your mother — so you would be Anthony, then."
"Thierry — Anthony is my elder brother."
"Ah, of course, apologies. I did suspect you were a little young to be studying as a healer already." Severus was pretending like he'd just confused the two brothers, but Liz was pretty sure Sauvageau hadn't actually mentioned Thierry to him. Which didn't necessary mean anything, she really had no idea how well they knew each other...
"I only help out a little, with the office." Thierry turned away from Severus, approached Liz by one of the posters on the wall, something flicking by in his mind. He just stood there for a second, lurching with hesitation. "I saw some of your matches. In Kaunas, I mean."
Liz turned to give him a raised eyebrow, but was immediately distracted from keeping eye contact, following the funny shimmers lifting from his mind, warm and colourful, like glowing rainbow fog lifting off of a bubbling cauldron... "Um. Okay?"
"The way you push out in front at team matches is always really cool — I don't know how you manage defending yourself from that many people at once and still— Oh, and that trick with the summoning charm with, er... What was his name again?"
He couldn't possibly be asking her, could he? "How should I know? I fought a lot of people that week."
"Yeah, that's what happens when you don't lose," he drawled, a shiver of amusement working through the shimmering. "Something Slavic, maybe? Anyway, it was really clever. I don't— How do you know which spell to use, in those quick exchanges, it's always something– it's so fast, sometimes."
Liz shrugged. "Lots of practice. And I mean a lot of practice — we're at it at least three days a week, and I get extra on my own with Sirius. You don't really think about why you're using which spell in the moment, mostly, you train yourself to do it reflexively."
"That's kind of hard to believe, it just– it seems so intentioned, watching. Especially with the way you quick-step around, and— You've gotten so smooth with that! I wasn't in Jassy, but I saw some memories of it, and the difference is very obvious, in and out so casually and—" Thierry seemed to cut himself off, as though he realised what he was about to say and second-guessed himself.
...Oh. Liz saw what Severus had found so funny, earlier, he'd noticed before she did: apparently she had a fan. That was...weird.
Of course, she did notice it was weird, but she was too high for it to really bother her at the moment. The thought surfacing in her mind, oh this is weird, floating past smooth and gentle before fading away again, leaving Liz just blankly blinking back at Thierry.
He paid enough attention to her duelling that he remembered fights she didn't at all, really — she couldn't remember doing something clever with a summoning charm back in Kaunas? She'd take his word for it that she did, but, it just wasn't coming to her. (She had been in a lot of fights that week, very exhausting, they kind of blurred together.) Somehow, that anyone was paying that much attention to what she was doing at these events hadn't really occurred to her. It should have, she knew she'd been mentioned in the summary books they put out and magazines and stuff, but... She just hadn't been thinking about it, she guessed.
She wondered how many other people there were out there, paying as much attention as Thierry. That was a weird thought.
...
But not really that bad of one, she guessed. At least it was something she'd actually done — people being silly over her duelling 'career' was a whole hell of a lot better than the Girl Who Lived shite. Especially if they weren't actively bothering her with it, she didn't care.
She had done pretty fucking great at Kaunas, so it wasn't entirely unexpected that she might have fans now — she just hadn't been thinking about that, distracted by things. That was fine, she guessed.
Kind of flattering, honestly (she did enjoy winning), but she had no idea if she'd feel the same way about it if she weren't high at the moment.
But, thinking about that, following Thierry cutting himself off a little into his head without really meaning to, something else about the way he was acting, the funny warm colourful shimmer lifting off his mind, his attention on her, it clicked. Before she could stop herself, she said, "You do know I'm gay, right?"
Thierry's face abruptly went very red, Severus's silent laughter ringing through the air.
Luckily for him, the silly boy was rescued from his stammering by his mother. The door clicked open again and a middle-aged woman stepped into the room. She'd probably be able to pass without notice in the magical world — dressed in plain trousers and sleeveless blouse, brown hair kept short in little asymmetrical curls scattered across her head, nothing really obviously magical about her. Liz had kind of half-expected her to look funny, but she guessed just because she was a blood alchemist herself didn't necessarily mean she'd gotten any flashy work done. The living room looked normal enough too, not sure why she'd expecting otherwise...
Sauvageau greeted Severus first, before introductions were made with Liz. They'd met at some awards ceremony for something, turned out — they'd both won in different categories, had been sat next to each other at the dinner the winners had had afterward. (Some minor awards given out by one healing journal or another, not something she would have heard of before. Apparently Severus had a few of those.) He'd been asked for cursebreaking advice on occasion — part of Sauvageau's job was to strip curses and regrow the excised tissues, and some were more stubborn than others — so, since they had a pre-existing professional relationship, she'd been high on his list of people to ask. Liz suspected Severus was trying to be subtly reassuring that Sauvageau was trustworthy and was good at her job, but that wasn't really necessary — she didn't think he would have brought them here in the first place if she weren't.
Liz went into the office with Sauvageau alone, which was probably the right move, considering she was pretty sure pictures of her naked body were going to be involved at some point. It was a rather normal-looking office, with a writing desk holding neatly-stacked papers and a small rack of potion phials (mostly empty), the walls on the back third or so of the room completely covered in bookshelves and cabinets. There was a seating area between the door and the desk, a sofa and a couple chairs — interestingly, not pointed at the desk, instead facing the left wall. The right wall had some more cabinets, a couple framed pictures and stuff on the walls (including multiple diplomas), but the left wall was mostly empty. A couple cabinets — one glass-faced, holding what were obviously bottles of liquor — in the middle a waist-high circular pedestal, dark greenish-black ceramic covered in faintly-glowing runes, a sizeable reservoir stone inserted into a slot on the top. What the hell was that?
"Have a seat here, if you like." Sure, she didn't see why not. Liz plopped down onto the sofa without thinking — normally she'd pick a chair, to strategically deny Sauvageau the option of sitting next to her. Oh well, she was too comfortable at the moment to be bothered if the woman did decide to sit on the sofa too. While she was musing over that, Sauvageau was fiddling with the pedestal, a faint shiver of magic lapping at Liz's skin. "All right. I have a couple matters to address, and then we can move on to your questions, or anything else you might wish to talk about.
"It may interest you to know that this is a medical procedure now. Removing the scars on your chest is not optional — if you decide not to work with me, I truly must insist you find someone else to do it, as soon as is feasible." Before Liz could ask, Sauvageau tapped at something on the pedestal, there was a flash of light—
An illusion appeared between the sofa and the plinth, perfectly realistic, opaque and solid-looking and in full colour...of Liz, naked, feet floating a couple inches off the ground. Um...
It was kind of surreal, honestly. She always felt a little weird looking at herself from the outside, like in memories or whatever, never quite registered as herself she was looking at, dissociated. It never really felt like her she was looking at, even though she knew full well it was...
Sauvageau made some kind of gesture, and the illusion changed from realistic colour to more of a silhouette, coloured orange, a few places filled in different colours, handwriting in a mix of French and Egyptian glyphs sketched around it here and there. Her notes from when she was going over it a minute ago, Liz guessed. Reaching out and tugging at the illusion, Sauvageau zoomed in on the chest, the mass of black and green there, zig-zagging tendrils spreading out from the centre like lightning. More glyphs appeared as the view got closer, er, describing the character of the magic embedded in her scars, looked like...
"I can understand why generalised healers might have had little idea what to do with this," Sauvageau said, nodding at the illusion. "There are multiple curses and impressions embedded here, which have been further destabilised from their original form due to multiple traumatic events of some kind. I understand the original cause is believed to have been the Curse of Annihilation?"
Liz nodded. "And I think whatever ritual my mother did to block it got mixed up in there too."
"Mm, very likely. It's hard to say for sure, it truly is a tangled mess in there. However, I don't see any elements directly anchoring these magics to your own essence, so it should be a trivial matter to remove them. And I insist you do so, soon." Sauvageau manipulated the illusion some more, tweaking something. And then parts of the illusion suddenly became translucent — the scars were still solid, but her skin faded to show white bones beneath, a complex branching network of reddish-purple, some deep thick tubes and others tiny bright filaments...
Woah. So, that was her skeleton (just her ribs and spine, zoomed in this close) and blood vessels, then? That was so cool...
After looking around for a couple seconds, the illusion being turned side-on to Liz, she realised the scars weren't just on the surface — they penetrated well into her skin, a few thick jagged tendrils even poking their way between her ribs. A chopping motion of Sauvageau's hand, and a bunch of the white and purple mess vanished, showing a cross-section, white marks where her ribs were, the black of the scars, purple of blood vessels, a big blob where her heart was...
She noticed some of the black bits reaching down were pressing in pretty close to her heart. "Oh, is that why it's not optional anymore?" she asked, pointing at the jagged black stuff near the deep purple blob.
"Yes, that's why. The affected tissues can only be stretched so far — they accommodated the growth of the tissues around them as you aged thus far, but they've reached their limit. This has started causing sheer stress around the boundary, causing additional layers of mundane scarring, but the biggest problem is here. The sheer stress around this nodule here," pointing at the bit near her heart, "is creating a growing layer of stiff, in places even calcified tissue, which has begun putting stress on the pericardium. The protective sack around the heart, that is. There is...
"There is normally fluid within the pericardium surrounding the heart," Sauvageau changed tack, trying to explain in layman's terms. "To suspend the surface of the pericardium away from the heart itself, to prevent any damage from friction. Sometimes, when subjected to injury, the body will increase the volume of fluid in the pericardium. The intent is to insulate the heart from damage, but there is also an increase in pressure as a consequence. This is acceptable during healing from an injury, or so long as the effects are kept mild. But this will only get worse as the damage around the nodule here accumulates, greater and greater pressure bearing down on your heart. And there is only so much pressure the heart can continue functioning under.
"The effects are still mild now — I understand you didn't note any serious cardiac symptoms during your exam — but it will get worse. If left untreated, I would expect fatal heart failure in five to ten years. I truly must insist you have the scars removed, regardless of what else we decide today."
...Oh. She'd had no idea, she felt fine. Well, she felt fine physically, she meant, obviously her brain was a fucking mess, but she did a lot of pretty hard exercise and she never noticed any problems. A little dizzy sometimes, maybe, but... Just, she'd had no idea, the thought that she could have dropped dead before the age of twenty due to something she hadn't even noticed was just so surreal. "Um. Lucky I want to get rid of them anyway, then?"
Sauvageau smirked, a little shiver of silent laughter echoing through the air. "I suppose so. It's early enough in the development of the condition that the intervention needn't be drastic — no repairs to the heart itself will be needed. I may simply excise and replace the affected tissues, and you'll be good as new. Depending on what it's looking like when I'm in there, I may take the opportunity to partially drain the effusion, but that likely won't be necessary. My second point..." A series of gestures, the illusion turned, back to Liz, zooming in further and scrolling down, everything else turning invisible to only show the white of her bones, focussed on just a few of her vertebrae. Sauvageau further tweaked what they were looking at, the colour darkening somewhat to a more yellowish-pinkish off-white colour, more of the details coming into focus, different textures in different places, pock marks and lines...
Liz spotted the runes carved into the bone, the edges jagged and uneven, and winced at a sudden flash of half-remembered pain. That was so cool though, she didn't realise those would still be visible. How long did it take bone to heal, exactly?
"I understand these were elements of a ritual Severus performed to reverse a spinal injury," Sauvageau said, pointing at the runes.
"Yep. That fucking hurt, freaky as hell..."
A sharp lurch of surprise in her head, Sauvageau turned to gape at her. "Severus carved glyphs into your vertebrae, by hand, while you were fully conscious."
Liz nodded. "He said the ritual only worked if I was awake for it. Couldn't even do anything about the pain — apparently that's part of the ritual, sacrifice, you know." There were a couple seconds of silence then, Sauvageau just staring at her. "Really, it's not a big deal. It fucking sucked at the time, but I really didn't want to be paralysed for however long — totally worth it." Especially since she didn't even remember it all that well, going along with the idea had been the right decision.
Sauvageau seemed very sceptical of that, but she didn't argue, just firmly shook her head. "In any case. The ritual may have repaired the spinal cord, but the damage to the vertebrae was unaffected. As you can see, there are some minor defects and cracks, here, here, and here. It isn't urgent, but I would recommend repairing these. That procedure will be somewhat more sensitive, as we must be careful to avoid stressing the cord overmuch, but it's safe enough. Much more safe than leaving these vertebrae as they are, I would argue. I've already checked with Severus — these glyphs are inert now, repairing them won't reverse his healing work."
"Right, let's do that, then." From the sound of it, she was worried about the bones being weakened, so she could break her back again more easily, so, fixing that seemed like the obvious thing to do. Doing that ritual had been the right decision, but she didn't want to have to do it a second time.
"Very well. My third and final medical concern..." Sauvageau messed with the illusion again, zooming out and spinning around and moving, the bones again hidden with other layers tinted unnatural col— She wondered if the illusion could show what other stuff under her skin actually looked like. Probably? Though she wondered if not having light in there would mess it up, that was possible — scrying worked a similar way, you might be able to read a book but only the page it was currently open to. They could cheat and look at the other pages, but maybe the funny process meant they could only build it in false colours? Whatever, Sauvageau tweaked the layers, different things coming in and out of focus...
Liz blinked at the familiar shape floating in front of her, greenish-blue touched with blobs or streaks in orange or red or purple — that was a uterus, with the tubes leading to the ovaries and extending through at least part of the vagina going down. She recognised it from the diagrammes and shite in that book Severus pressed on her ages ago now, though it didn't quite look exactly the same. It was pretty common in diagrammes to overly simplify things, to cheat with angles to get the best view, which obviously hadn't been done here: the thing was curled funny, taken together with the upper part of the vagina making a shallow sort of S-bend, where it split off to the ovaries looking just a little more Y-shaped. (Not a super obvious dip to make the Y, but she didn't remember that angle being there at all in the drawings she'd seen before.) She assumed the curving and the vague Y-ness was normal, just to cram everything in there correctly, but it also didn't seem quite symmetrical, twisted some degrees so the right end of the Y — really the left end, since she was looking at it front-on — was slightly further away than the other. That she didn't think was normal, and she assumed the different shading in places marked other things Sauvageau had noticed...but she really didn't know how much variation was expected in these things. She wasn't the healer in the room.
And Liz was suddenly very glad that she'd taken something before this meeting. She was aware that she could be unreasonably neurotic about her body — especially certain parts of it. Even now, looking at what she knew was a false-colour reproduction of what her actual uterus and vagina and stuff looked like, that thought was making her...vaguely squirmy. Like, kind of making her think of when she was in a social situation, hanging out with the study group or whatever, aware that she was doing something wrong and making other people uncomfortable, but not entirely sure what to do about it. A pretty normal, manageable level of awkwardness to feel, which was very much an improvement — she was pretty sure that if she wasn't high right now, this would be making her intensely uncomfortable.
The drugs were making her feel floaty enough that, yeah, it was a little awkward, but she still had brain energy to think the magic was neat. Not just the imaging stuff in the first place — which was very very cool, she wasn't really into healing but she still thought it was cool that they could do this stuff — but also the enchantments to make an illusion you could interact with with your bare hands? That was awesome! How the hell did they do that, she should look that up...
Anyway, Sauvageau had been saying something, Liz had been distracted and missed part of it. Um, minor structural defects, by the sound of it — so some of that wasn't normal, all right, then. Small things, that didn't normally require medical intervention, and often resolved themselves under the stress of a first successful pregnancy...though they'd want to keep an eye on that, because there would be an elevated risk of miscarriage. Sauvageau would be willing to do some remodelling here for that reason, but it wasn't a medical necessity, they could put it off if Liz wasn't interested. Which, she wasn't interested, but not for that reason — she didn't plan on ever having children, so the risk of miscarriage was irrelevant — it just wasn't a priority.
"There is this, however." Sauvageau fiddled with the illusion again, some of the layers fading out to instead show a greenish-orangish-blackish glow, framed with blocks of French writing and Egyptian glyphs. "It seems you were struck with a sterilisation curse of some kind. I don't recognise it offhand, but it seems to be interfering with the hormone cycle somehow — do you remember when your last period was?"
...She was going to want to do something about that wasn't she? Ugh, this was going to suck. Healers didn't generally react well to people cursing themselves, she'd learned. "Um. Over a year ago now?"
Sauvageau sighed. "I suspected as much. This curse is rather more thoroughly grounded than the ones in the scars, and will be more difficult to purge, but it is doable. I may have to do some significant remodelling regardless, in order to fully isolate—"
"No."
She broke off her ramble, turning a raised eyebrow on Liz. "I'm sorry?"
"No, don't get rid of it."
There was a funny cool shiver from her head, Sauvageau faintly frowning at her. "Why not?"
Liz forced a casual shrug. "I put it there for a reason."
For a second, Sauvageau simply stared at her, face abruptly blank — but her mind was far more expressive, cool and dark and lurching with hidden thoughts. Finally, she said, flat and expressionless, "You placed this curse yourself."
"Yep."
Sauvageau let out a heavy sigh, her eyes tipping to the ceiling. She moved to say something, but then immediately cut herself off, turning to silently stare at the illusion, her eyes tracking over the description of the curse. Her mind was shielded enough that Liz didn't see much, but she did get the impression that the healer was somewhat disturbed.
Which was fucking ridiculous. Didn't seem like any of her business to Liz, but whatever.
"I need to bring Severus in for this discussion."
"Why? Can't we just move on? The curse is doing what it's supposed to do, it's fine."
Sauvageau frowned. "I understand that, Liz, that isn't the problem. Either we talk about this, now, or you find another bioalchemist to work with."
...Which would probably mean doing all the exams and shite all over again, which she really didn't want to have to do. Especially since Severus would probably expect an explanation as to why...and Liz really had no idea what Sauvageau might tell him about it. It was possible she was missing something, but it didn't look like there was a way out of this. Might as well just get it over with. Liz sighed. "Fine, bring him in."
Once again, Liz patted herself on the back for deciding to be on something for this meeting — she did feel somewhat exasperated, but that was better than being pointlessly anxious about the conversation she was being railroaded into. If this was what she had to do to get what she wanted, fine, whatever.
(She hated feeling trapped.)
Sauvageau put her folder of notes down, and walked over to the door. Severus was walking in a moment later, the door again closing behind him. Instead of explaining what was going on, Sauvageau simply gestured at the illusion, and let Severus figure it out for himself — he was a healer too, after all, he'd know enough to put it together without being told. Liz did feel a faint squirming of discomfort at Severus looking at that of all things, but she forced herself not to think about it, relaxing back in the nice comfortable sofa, her head tipping back against the cushion. Besides, she'd lost count of how many times Severus had seen her naked for one medical thing or another, and he was never creepy about it, it was fine.
Though Severus could be about as awkward about woman stuff as Liz was sometimes — she remembered how vaguely uncomfortable he'd seemed, giving her that book last year — which was kind of funny by itself, though she really couldn't say why. He didn't seem to want to talk about particular things any more than she did, so.
After a moment looking over the illusion, Severus said, "This is a sterility curse."
"It is, yes."
"It must have been cast some time ago to be... What are these terms here? It seems unlikely that the spellform could have resolved with such a structure incorporated, it would be far too unstable."
"I suspect that wasn't part of the original curse — it was integrated as a separate event. Do you practise blood subsumption?"
That question was obviously to Liz, but before she could decide what to say — she didn't even know whether that was legal in France, admitting to it might be a bad idea — Severus beat her to it. "Of course. Yes, if a latent curse was integrated absque opere through ritualised subsumption, that could explain such a complex incorporation."
"You are aware she's been practising subsumption?" It wasn't really a question.
There was a tense, dark flicker from Severus's mind, he shot her a look. "When I discovered she'd begun to investigate the subject herself, I reviewed her ritual, and continue to provide subjects and a safe place to perform it." Liz noticed he'd carefully avoided admitting that she'd already been doing it for a couple months before then, probably covering his own arse. "One must choose one's battles with teenagers. As this occurred while our government, in its infinite wisdom and caution, had decided to post dementors in the Valley, I decided there were more important concerns worth troubling myself over."
Sauvageau grimaced. "Fair enough. I suspect more Seers would be so healthy if they could supplement their often spotty diets with subsumption as well."
"Naturally." Of course, they hadn't known Liz was a Seer yet at the time, but Severus was hardly about to admit that either.
...How much of a difference did that make, actually? In retrospect, she'd only really started putting more weight on after she'd started regularly doing those subsumption rituals. She did eat more than she used to, but with duelling she was also way more active than before, and that was also around the time she'd started taking nutrient potions, so. Hard to say.
She would say she should try stopping to see what changed, but with how busy things had been lately she'd ended up doing it like a week late a couple times — she started feeling pretty slow and fuzzy if she put it off too long. So, kind of curious what was caused by what, but making herself miserable as an experiment wasn't worth it.
"In any case, I shouldn't think this degree of integration would prevent you from stripping it."
"It won't — I may need to do some remodelling to fully isolate and purge any remaining fragments, but it shouldn't be difficult."
"I suspect some minor remodelling may be called for regardless. I do recall Liz reported a range of—" There was a sudden shudder in Severus's head, he turned away from Sauvageau and the illusion to give her a look.
She wasn't reading his mind at the moment, obviously, but she was pretty sure he'd just realised that she'd had an awful time with her first couple periods...but then never mentioned it again. And hey, look at that, turned out she had some kind of sterilisation curse on her, wonder how that happened. At the unvoiced question, Liz just shrugged.
"Liz, why don't you tell Severus who cast this curse," Sauvageau suggested.
Because she didn't want to, mostly — there was a reason she hadn't gone to him in the first place. He'd been nice enough to curse her chest for her around the same time, so she'd stop getting more lopsided, but she had a feeling he wouldn't be so cooperative about this one. But there was no point in being stubborn about it now, she was sure he'd already guessed anyway. "I did it myself, last spring."
As she'd thought, Severus had obviously already figured that out, there wasn't any more sign of surprise from his head. Cool and shifting and something, yes, but. "Elizabeth... Why would you—"
"Because nobody was fucking doing anything!" The anger felt kind of numb, and most of the heat dribbled away almost immediately, leaving Liz feeling tense and prickly but not particularly worked up. She let out a sigh, crossed her arms over her stomach and relaxed back into the sofa again — the room spun around her a little as she tipped her head back. (Right. Drugs. That was still happening.) "Do you remember how miserable it was? It hurt, a lot, constantly, and I was so sick I could hardly eat anything, and headachey, and... I went to Pomfrey, but the potions she gave me were useless, and she said she couldn't do anything else about it — basically just told me to wait until...well, until it was time to see you," Liz admitted, vaguely waving in Sauvageau's direction. "The first was bad enough, and the second was worse, and...and nobody could do shite. So I fixed it myself."
There was a short silence, the other two minds in the room shivering, cool and dark and quiet. She wasn't looking that closely, maybe peeking a little but not really paying that much attention, focussed more on trying to choke down the hot twisted mess crawling up her throat — the anger had fizzled out pretty quick, but apparently she could still feel frustration at the moment, awesome. (Didn't want to let that get out of hand, for some reason it got very messy when she cried while on this stuff.) But, even without looking too closely, she could tell that they were...taking it seriously. Which was unexpectedly gratifying, honestly, enough Liz felt her lips twitching, all...
She remembered finding this shite incredibly frustrating at the time — her body being pointlessly awful, yes, which she couldn't do shite about, but also people... Well, they didn't seem to believe it was as bad as it really was. Her girl friends had been sympathetic at least, if a bit bemused by her 'overreaction' at times, and some of them even, almost, condescendingly amused. Like, she was a fucking mindreader, okay, she could tell they were assuming she was going through what they went through (at least the ones who'd started already), and found it a little funny that Liz, the scary mind mage who'd just gotten on the duelling team and got beat up in quidditch all the time, couldn't handle a little thing like this, but she was a fucking mindreader, that was not what everyone else went through, it was worse for her for some inexplicable—
Or, not so inexplicable? There actually was something wrong, turned out. Pomfrey had suggested there might be, so she'd kind of already known that, but, just looking at the illusion right there, the crookedness and the colours Sauvageau had marked things with...yeah. But her friends hadn't realised that, obviously.
And Pomfrey had been useless. She'd at least believed that Liz was describing it accurately — but apparently she had little sense of what that meant, because she'd still said that Liz had to, just, deal with it, until she could see someone who had the means to diagnose and treat whatever the issue was. Sympathetic, yes, she could feel that Pomfrey had hated that she couldn't help, but that hadn't done her any fucking good at all when all Pomfrey could do was tell her to wait.
Wait, for another year, or more. There'd simply been no fucking way Liz was doing that. Just getting through normal shite could be stressful enough, with her Sight getting more sensitive, and Daphne, and the Tournament... If she had her disfigured fucking uterus trying to kill her once a month on top of all of that, she probably would have had a complete breakdown at some point, that was just too many things.
Cursing herself had definitely been the correct decision, she'd had no other options. And she could tell that Severus and Sauvageau, at least to some degree, realised that — that felt...kind of good, honestly. Even while still trying to fight down her frustration over the whole thing, it was nice.
It was nice when people took her problems seriously — nobody had given a damn when she was a child, she still didn't expect people to, most of the time.
(There were reasons she hadn't just gone to Severus about it. At the time, she wouldn't have said she'd thought he wouldn't help her for Liz-is-broken, Dursley reasons, but sitting here a year later and with a little bit of distance thanks to being a bit high at the moment, yeah, that was fucking obvious in retrospect. She was getting better about this stuff, it was, just, frustratingly slow sometimes.)
After a lengthy, tense pause, Sauvageau finally said, "I can't say I'm surprised you had such a hard time. I'm seeing multiple minor defects here, which may all cause pain with menstruation — in concert, I can believe it was extremely unpleasant. And I imagine the usual potions wouldn't have done much to help. I can fix this, however."
Liz frowned. "Really?" She'd heard that before. Until Pomfrey had decided she couldn't do shite, anyway.
"Yes, I can. It will take some significant remodelling — to ensure I've accounted for everything, I may well have to rebuild much of the uterus and some of the surrounding ligaments from scratch. As long as I'm down there, I may want to touch up some of the bones and tendons in the pelvis as well. There is some significant damage here, I assume from a duelling injury."
That'd be from the curse Artèmi knocked her out of the Fifth Task with. "Mhmm."
"Whoever healed this did fine work, but I suspect this hip is going to trouble you later in life. Preventing that will be a relatively minor intervention. Repairing the root cause of your difficult periods is a much more drastic procedure, but I can do it, and it will work. I can't promise you'll enjoy menstruation when I'm done, nobody does, but it should be manageable. Like it is for everyone else."
Liz groaned. "Do we have to? This is fine," she insisted, waving at the description of the curse on the illusion, and then letting her arms flop limply onto the cushions. "I haven't had any side effects from the curse or anything, it's doing exactly what I want it to do. Can't we, just, leave it?"
"If you don't agree to let me remove the curse, you will need to find another bioalchemist."
...
Well, fuck.
While she was still floundering at that, just, frustrating ultimatum, Severus said, "The issue, Elizabeth, is that it is not fine. That you have unknowingly anchored the curse does not make it any less of a foreign intrusion. Such static curses may cause all manner of complications of varying severity — it is impossible to predict how they will present until they do. Cancer is common. Your immune system and even your magic may be enticed to attack the effected tissues, at any moment. In addition, there are the direct effects of this class of curse to consider. The body is a complex, precisely-balanced system, and there is simply no telling what the unintended consequences of an intervention such as this might be."
"I'd be particularly concerned about bone density and the formation of blood vessels," Sauvageau interjected. Because apparently they were tag-teaming on this lecture now. "Ischemia. The secondary effects for neural and muscle development are an open question, and who knows what else. Some things are not meant to be played with."
Severus gave his fellow healer a little nod. "Precisely."
Liz pouted up at him, and then immediately realised what she was doing and stopped. "You agreed to curse my chest when I asked."
"Those curses were carefully delimited and isolated, and set with the expectation that they were a temporary measure, to remain in place only until the scars were removed. The same cannot be said for this one."
"I get that, but— I really don't want to, Severus." She could hear the whine on her own voice, but she couldn't really do anything about it. It, just, Sauvageau said she could fix it so it was way less painful, sure, but that didn't mean she wanted to have to bleed out of her vagina once a month, that was just gross and... Who knew if the other stuff, like the headaches or the nausea would be better at all, it was hard enough for Liz to eat properly already, and she'd been, just, directionlessly angry all the time, and miserable, and kind of hating everything, it was just stressful, and...
She was pretty sure she was going to end up agreeing to do it — Sauvageau was being a bitch about it, and she didn't want to have to do all the exams over again, and who knew how long it'd be until they could set up an appointment with someone else? And they might just give her the same ultimatum as Sauvageau anyway. She was so sick of being disfigured, needing to dress around her scars, and, she wanted them gone, as soon as possible. If agreeing to reverse the curse was what she needed to do to get what she needed, fine, she would do it. It just fucking sucked, was all. Especially since she couldn't put it back, because her subsumption ritual would just incorporate it again, and it didn't feel like they were lying about the health risks, and Severus would probably notice eventually...
Liz hated feeling trapped.
"I know." Severus hesitated, glanced at Sauvageau. Then he moved over to the sofa, swished around to sit down next to her. His wand appeared in his hand, a swirl and a crackle of magic — a privacy paling, he'd made it so Sauvageau couldn't hear them. His voice low, barely above a whisper, "We've approached the subject of your feelings of revulsion toward your own body in the past." That wasn't quite how she would put it...though his words were probably more accurate than what she would say, honestly... "I suspect it is possible that the secondary symptoms you noted at the time were, at least in part, psychosomatic."
She felt herself pouting, but at this point she was too annoyed to care. Slumping back deeper into the sofa, she crossed her arms over her stomach, glaring at the illusion still floating ahead. "Maybe." She'd like to say that was horseshite, but she didn't really believe that — Severus would feel it if she lied.
"Given the progress you have made since then, and what benefit the procedure may have, how likely do you expect it to be that the symptoms may at least be manageable?"
"...Some." She realised some likely didn't make a lot of sense, but.
"I cannot force you to agree to anything. But any blood alchemist worth speaking to is likely to have the same misgivings as Béce — and I would not recommend having work done by one who does not."
"Yeah, I kind of thought so."
"I do..." A little flicker in his mind, Severus let a thin sigh out through his nose. "I would suggest giving it a few months, at least. The procedure will be done sometime this summer, perhaps August. Should you find that whatever symptoms you experience after Béce's work truly are intolerable, come to me over winter break — I will perform the hysterectomy myself. Is that acceptable?"
He would have to do it himself, despite it not really being his area of expertise, because most healers would hesitate to do that kind of surgery on a fourteen-year-old girl — or fifteen, by then, but still. Sometimes for stupid misogynist reasons, yes, but also, permanently removing organs was serious business, and normally only the sort of thing people did if it was absolutely necessary. Liz knew from talking about stuff with Severus and Pomfrey before, and other stuff she'd heard or read over the years, that getting a healer to actually agree to that would be a problem.
Severus himself wasn't comfortable with it, even. Partly because it wasn't his area of expertise, but partly, yeah, serious business, not the kind of thing you play around with. Especially since there were potions she'd need to be on for the rest of her life afterward, that was a whole thing...
He wasn't lying, though, she would feel it if he were — he would do it, if it came down to it. Because, in the long run, her being comfortable with, just, existing was more important than whatever other concerns he might have.
Sharp heat clawing at her throat, her eyes stinging, ah, fucking thing. For a few seconds, trying to fight it down, all she could do was nod. She concentrated for a moment, once she was pretty sure she'd be able to pull it off and wouldn't abruptly start crying, she broke Severus's privacy spell with a flick of her wrist and a burst of bright, sparkly magic. "Yeah," she said, her voice croaking a little. "Yeah fine, I'll do it."
There was a little bit of discussion then, Liz wasn't paying a lot of attention, focussing on keeping control of herself. Which was harder to do than normal, what with being high at the moment — it was very obvious in Severus and Sauvageau's heads that they knew she was trying not to cry, but at least they were both tactful enough not to draw attention to it. Pretty soon that topic was done, and they didn't need Severus here any more.
His hand came down, lightly, to settle on her knee, her dress a permeable enough of a layer for his mind to press up against hers, his concern and exasperation and sympathy and stuff washing over her in waves. Just for a moment, and he was standing up, shortly disappeared out the door.
That really didn't help her keep calm — she was left struggling to breathe, wiping at her eyes with shaking fingers, fuck...
Sauvageau waited for a few seconds before asking, all soft and delicate, "Would you like a drink?"
She answered with a wavering sort of hum, cleared her throat, forced a couple breaths to make sure she'd be able to talk proper. "Um. Some w-wine or mead would—" (Sniffle, ugh.) "If it's not, not too sweet."
There was a little flicker of amusement on the air. "I was thinking water or tea. For you throat."
"...Oh. Oops."
Apparently Sauvageau wasn't actually against the idea — she did dip back over to the door, leaning out to ask Severus if it was okay, before breaking a bottle of mead out of the liquor cabinet. She dribbled just a little bit out into a (conjured) glass for Liz to taste first, but wasn't honey normally okay for Seers? Most of the time, yeah, but she didn't like sweet things either. Severus thought she'd associated bad psychometric echoes with sweetness when she was little, seemed reasonable. (Liz belatedly realised she was rambling, the drugs did that.) Anyway, the mead wasn't too sweet, with a pretty nice edge of spice to it...and some kind of vaguely herby something. She didn't think it was mint, but she couldn't tell what, exactly, too subtle. Sauvageau filled her glass — not filled filled, just the bit they normally did with wine, since it was about that strong — and fiddled with her own glass, politely stalling to give Liz time to collect herself.
She didn't know why she was reacting like this, nothing had even really happened. That Severus would do things for her that made him uncomfortable was a little overwhelming, was all. Just, feelings were stupid, couldn't help it.
At some point, the illusion had been turned off, Sauvageau moved over to one of the armchairs. She had a folder in her lap, presumably the papers from Liz's exam earlier in the day, casually flipping through it between sips at her mead. After a few minutes — the fucking sniffling had stopped a bit ago, the shaking gone out of Liz's fingers — Sauvageau said, "If you're ready, we can start going through the questions you noted on your paperwork."
"Sure, let's do it." Liz's voice still sounded a little croaky, her throat a little sore, but at least she'd managed to stop herself from breaking down like a fucking baby, so, good enough.
"All right, I'll start from the top. Unlike the ones on your chest, the scars on your back are very superficial — I would only need to remodel a few surface layers, no problem at all. Your second point here is about your hair." She could tell by how quickly Sauvageau moved on, a dark tense edge to her mind, that she was well aware of where those scars came from — thanks to Rita, that Liz had been abused wasn't a secret — but she was trying not to linger on it to make this easier on Liz, which was appreciated. (Especially after that lecture about cursing herself, she was already feeling kind of exhausted.) "What about your hair, exactly? I'm not certain what you mean by impossible."
"My hair is magic, but it's stupid magic. It just shrugs off any magic I put on it, it takes like six plaiting charms to get the whole thing, and even then it's a frizzy stubborn mess. Have to soak the shite in a special potion for, like, half an hour twice a week to get it to behave, mostly not worth the bother." She had used the potions Narcissa had gotten for the Yule Ball a couple times herself, it was just so much work to keep it going, fucking irritating. "It'll even grow back overnight if try to chop the shite off. I hate it, honestly, after the scars it's the single thing I most want to change."
"Ah...I think I'm familiar with this one..." Sauvageau paged through her folder for a few seconds, tapped at a particular page. A flick of her wrist brought her wand to hand, she summoned something off of a shelf, checked an index at the front before scanning over a few pages. "Yes, there it is — you do have the right markers. Black hair, full, class gamma-five."
Well shite, that was some nice precise terminology they had there. Liz guessed she wasn't surprised blood alchemists had categorised the things they worked with, she just hadn't really thought about it, she guessed. "If you say so. What the hell is the point of that, anyway? Why would anyone want to have impossible hair on purpose? It has to be on purpose, this shite isn't natural."
"The effects produced aren't what was intended." Her wand in her hand again, Sauvageau summoned another book from a shelf, this one thick and bulky, the pages seeming thicker and stiffer than they should be. "Bioalchemy is a very old field, enough that it predates much of our modern understanding of chemistry and biology. Whoever attempted to anchor this trait did not understand the mechanics involved in the intended effect well enough, so the result did not match their expectations." Sauvageau turned the book around, and leaned over to hold it to Liz. On each page there were multiple pictures of people — showing very little of their face or body, focussed on their hair — a short paragraph of description, and a lock of hair tied together and pinned to the page. Okay, then... "Our best guess it that the creators were intending something like this," Sauvageau said, pointing at the right-side page with her wand.
"Oh! Well, that's really pretty!" It was smooth and black, but there was an odd shimmer to it, the colour shifting into blues and greens depending on the angle you looked at it from. The pictures were animated, like most magical photos, streaks of colour moving through the subjects' hair as they moved, when Liz fingered the sample, splitting the hairs apart, bands of blue and green and a steely silver, the colour brighter and more vibrant as the hairs were spread out... "That's so cool! How did they fuck that up?"
A little bit of a smirk on her voice, her mind pulsing with warm amusement, Sauvageau said, "Structural colouration is complicated. The effect you are looking at now was only able to be achieved by borrowing from muggle science, an understanding they have only developed through modern methods, over the last few decades. The necessary understanding of organic chemistry and optics simply didn't exist at the time, so they failed to build the structure correctly. The stubborn curls and resistance to styling charms and potions are a result of the altered microscopic structure of your hair that did result, in place of the iridescent effect they intended.
"Your hair reverting to a particular length when cut or artificially grown is a separate trait — I'm afraid I can't do anything about that one, we're not certain how it works — but the rest is easily alterable. Go ahead and look through that for something you like."
...Honestly, she thought what her hair was supposed to look like was very cool — she was tempted to consider it, at least. But, that might make it rather difficult to go out in the muggle world at all — it was very obviously magical — and she did like the red she saw in that vision. (That she hadn't had hair like this in that glimpse of the future didn't necessarily mean anything, since alternate timelines existed, but it was a hint.) She might as well check over what varieties of red hair Sauvageau had in here, at least. A quick glance toward the front of the book, and there was a table of contents — sorted by the order colours came in the rainbow, she noticed — she turned to the red section, started slowly paging through.
Sauvageau waited for her to get started with the book, savouring a slow sip of mead, before continuing. "You mentioned your difficulty with sunburns. There are two methods we can try to ameliorate that somewhat: we can either darken your skin tone, to give you some degree of resistance, or we can try to make your skin more reactive, so it will tan more easily when exposed to sunlight. The advantage of the former is that you're less likely to develop sunburn on a first exposure. The latter in isolation is also likely to produce freckling."
"Um...I think I'd prefer to avoid freckles." They looked kind of funny to her, and she had the feeling she'd quickly get very self-conscious about it. "Let's not go too far with, you know, changing the colour, I don't want to look like a completely different person."
"I'm afraid I can't control the exact shade very precisely — the realisation of skin colour is extremely complicated. You may have been taught at some point that heritable traits operate through a few simple on-off switches, but skin colour can more properly be conceptualised as a multidimensional gradient created by a mix of different components, an individual's position within that gradient determined by the interaction of dozens upon dozens of factors. I can increase the likelihood someone will fall in a certain range, but I can't set a precise shade with any reliability." Sauvageau paused for a moment, a couple ticks going by in her mind. "I suspect the work we're doing will require multiple procedures spread over two or three days. If you like, I can set a few factors during the first procedure, and if you feel that hasn't made enough of a difference I can try adding a few more during the next."
"Yeah, sure, we can try that. Am I going to be stuck indoors between surgeries? Like, am I going to be able to test how it'll actually do in the sun?"
"You may leave between procedures, but it may not be practical to test it, depending on the weather at the time. I can bring a sun lamp into your room to do a far more professional test, if you like."
"Oh, that sounds good, thanks." She didn't really care what she looked like that much, honestly, she'd just rather not die in the sun, thanks. Pinning the book open between her fingers, she turned it around toward Sauvageau, tapped at one of the pages. "Can we do this one?" It was a deep, vibrant red, a nice rich dark colour, but when the light hit it right, along the edges or when there was enough space between hairs for the light to bounce around a bit, it got a little bit of a shiny golden edge to it, very pretty. She was pretty sure the shininess was subtle enough it'd just look like a neat light effect to muggles, not obviously magical...though they'd probably assume the colour was from hair dye — human hair just didn't get that super red colour naturally. It might or might not be the same colour she had in that vision, it'd been kind of fuzzy (and also a couple months ago now), but she thought it was neat, which was the important thing.
Taking the book, Sauvageau muttered, "Ah, yes. Let me see..." She paged through the folder, looking for something, then switched over to that other book she'd summoned over, who the hell knew what that was about. After a minute of scanning through various pages, she said, "I don't see any obvious conflicts — that shouldn't be a problem. Just let me..." Paging over to somewhere else in the folder, pulling out a pen, she scrawled down some notes somewhere, occasionally glancing back at the book with the hair samples. "All right," she said, slapping the hair book closed, "that should do it. Good choice, by the way — I suspect that will pair beautifully with your eyes.
"Moving on to your next point on the paperwork," Sauvageau continued, blowing right past the unexpected compliment (Liz feeling slightly bewildered), "no, it is not possible to change your height. Or I suppose I should say, it is not feasible to change your height. It is theoretically possible to do so, but it could take a dozen procedures over the course of months — and that only to gain a few inches, it will take significantly longer for more dramatic alterations. Given how young you still are, I can try to trigger an additional growth spurt with a few minor tweaks, but that may or may not work. And even if it does, I would not expect more than a few inches, and it will risk potential tendon and ligament injury, and may increase your susceptibility to bone fractures. If you truly wish to risk the side effects for such little gain, I am willing to do it, but I would not recommend it."
"...No," Liz said with a heavy sigh, her head tipping back on the cushion to glare up at the ceiling. "If it's going to be such a pain, I guess it's not that important. It is annoying being so bloody short, but it's not really that big of a deal. Besides, some people think I'm kinda cute like this, so, whatever." There was a flash of amusement from Sauvageau, and she realised, "Oh shite, I said that aloud didn't I? Oops, didn't mean to do that. I'm a little high at the moment, I'm blaming that."
There was a thoughtful lurch in the woman's head, probably wondering about the I'm a little high part, but she didn't say anything about it. "Very well. Next on your list was omniglottalism — you are a carrier of the trait, and you're already a mind mage, so triggering it should be trivial. You may find the new activity in your aura disorienting at first, but it shouldn't be too difficult to adjust. Though I am curious how having the talent activated late in life will interact with preexisting psychometry. If you could take some notes on the experience for me, and perhaps even consent to use whatever we discover in a possible future paper on the matter, I would appreciate it."
For a moment she just blinked up at the ceiling, a little taken aback. "Um, okay then. Would you have to use my name for that?"
"No, it would be anonymised."
"Then sure, I don't care." Should probably try to sort out what was a mind magic thing and what was a Seer thing anyway, taking some notes on this stuff wasn't a bad idea to begin with. If Sauvageau also got to write a paper about it, whatever. And hey, whatever she came up with might end up helping healers better manage other Seers' issues in the future, so, win-win.
"Great, thank you, Liz. And your last question was about breast development. This one is also complicated, I'm afraid. One difficulty is due to your age — you are still growing, which precludes the use of certain anchored sculpting techniques. Like skin colour, the factors determining breast size and composition are numerous and subtle." She paused for a second, a shade of something leaking through her aura. Some kind of feeling, Liz could tell, but it was too quiet to tell what it was without peeking. "And there is the influence of your general bodily composition to consider. Breasts are mostly formed of fatty tissue — due to your age, any remodelling I do will have to remain unanchored, and at your weight you may have difficulty maintaining what I build. And I can't predict what volume of breast tissue your metabolism will support ahead of time, the factors involved are simply too variable.
"What I would recommend is to follow the removal of your scars with natural breast development, with very little directed remodelling from me. That is trivial to do — I would simply provide the necessary materials and cue your body to shape them in whatever way comes to it naturally. If you find whatever results we end up with unsatisfactory, try dietary adjustments first. I realise the Sight can make keeping a regular diet difficult, but your body fat is quite low, and that will affect breast development. You might try asking a healer specialising in women's health or a midwife for advice on what will do the most good there. There are potions to help encourage breast growth as well, but it can be difficult to fine-tune the dose to avoid cueing lactation, so that may not be an attractive option.
"If you've tried everything and are still dissatisfied with the results by the time you've stopped developing — it's hard to say what age that would be, precisely, perhaps seventeen to twenty — then a bioalchemist may make adjustments. Any responsible practitioner will wait until that age, and they will likely recommend trying less extreme interventions first — if you suspect you may wish to seek further adjustment in the future, you may as well get the alternatives out of the way while you're waiting. So in short, no, we can't determine how your breasts are going to turn out ahead of time, but if you're unhappy you can come back around to it later. Okay?"
"Yeah, okay." Liz hadn't thought it was particularly likely they'd be able to do that anyway, especially not after Sauvageau had explained why they couldn't fix her height. That was fine, she guessed — she was bloody tiny, after all, she'd probably look bloody strange if they went playing around with it too much. Whatever she ended up with would probably be acceptable.
Honestly, she'd be pleased to actually have tits at all, when it came down to it she wasn't picky. Just curious.
"So, then." Sauvageau held up a hand, counting points off on her fingers. "We have scar removal, both on your chest and your back, with subsequent remodelling of your breasts; remodelling of your spine; more extensive remodelling through the pubic area; darkening your skin; replacing your hair; triggering your omniglottalism. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
"No, that's it." She couldn't think of anything else she'd want to do, really...
"All right." Sauvageau flipped to another page in the folder, started scrawling something out, occasionally looking back over something. Whatever she was doing over there, it barely took a minute before she leaned back a bit with a sharp nod. "Three procedures, over two nights. With the different demands of the various alterations we're making, I think that will be most efficient.
"Bioalchemy — as, to varying degrees, ritual alchemy in general — tends to interact poorly with sunlight. Most procedures will be done in isolated environments, and preferably overnight. Honestly that's convenient for scheduling reasons, as it means we may arrange the use of equipment and operating rooms between different classes of procedures in a way where everyone gets a turn — it does mean I mess up my sleep when I have work scheduled, but that's life," Sauvageau said with an edge of a sarcastic drawl. Holding up a single finger, "The first procedure will be the ritual to propagate the alterations to your genetics we're making — the new hair colour, darkening your skin, and also editing out the few serious defects you're carrying. I realise you don't plan on having children, but we might as well take care of it as long as we're at it. Before you leave today, I'll take a sample of your blood; between now and whenever we schedule the procedure, I'll make the necessary edits. The day of, you'll arrive at the same hospital you visited today, late in the evening. You'll remove your hair, have a purifying bath, and we'll start the ritual after sunset. You will be unconscious for that — having alterations propagated through a blood sample as I mean to do is very unpleasant to experience, it's better to simply sleep through it.
"The second procedure," she said, ticking up a second finger, "will be later that same night, once your identity begins to stabilise. You will need to be awake during that time, I'm afraid — your identity will resolve from that sort of alteration far more quickly when conscious. The downside is that the alterations will make you feel quite ill. We can try to manage it with potions but there's not a lot that will help. We'll keep a close eye on your aura, and once your identity resolves we'll move straight to the second procedure — probably starting somewhere between midnight and two in the morning, depending. I'll strip the upper layers of your skin, including your hair follicles, and excise and cleanse the scars in your chest, then rebuild everything back. The altered skin and hair colour will gradually present if left alone, as cells die and are replaced, but since I'll need to strip so much skin to clear away the scars to begin with, we might as well force it all at once. How intensive this procedure will be will also make it a convenient time to trigger the omniglottalism. The entire procedure may take two to four hours — or perhaps less, considering your stature—" She meant that Liz had less skin to replace than most people would, since she was tiny. "—but you will be unconscious for the duration.
"You'll wake up in the morning — perhaps late in the morning, given the stress from the healing work. You'll still be feeling somewhat ill from the first procedure, and tender and sore from the second, but those should both improve over the course of the day. You'll spend that day in the hospital, mostly waiting for night to come again, but we will take the opportunity to do a few tests. Your hair may or may not grow back on its own, healing stress can prevent the effect, if it hasn't come back you'll be given a potion — it should come out in the new colour, you should be seeing it that morning. We can do the test with the sun lamp later in the afternoon, after the new tissues have had more time to settle in. I'll try to find a volunteer to confirm the omniglottalism has resolved properly, but that may or may not be convenient, we'll see. Once the sun is down, we'll do the third procedure," ticking up a third finger. "In this one, I'll do all the more delicate remodelling — your breasts, your spine, and the work through the pelvic area. Ah, and your eyes, of course." Oh right, Liz had almost forgotten Sauvageau was 'fixing' her vision while they were at it... "It's harder to predict how long this one will take. If your vertebrae are more fragile than expected, or the work rebuilding the ligaments around your uterus and injured hip goes slowly, it could easily take as long as five or six hours, but if everything goes smoothly it may only be two, two and a half. You'll sleep through the entire process regardless. In the morning, we'll need to do a few tests to ensure the remodelling took correctly, but if all goes well you should be released by lunchtime.
"So: arrive in the evening, two procedures the first night, a whole day in hospital, the third procedure the second night, and then a final half-day in hospital. Any questions, or concerns with such a tight schedule? We may do the third procedure another time, if you prefer."
"No, that's fine. I think I'd rather we just get it out of the way." Especially since Liz did not like being poked at by healers, and depending on how unpleasant the first night was having to psyche herself up to come back a second time might be miserable. She would ask why they couldn't just do the second and third one all at once, but four to ten hours was kind of a long time to do pretty much anything — presumably Sauvageau would like to have a break at some point. "Um, how many other people are going to be in the room? I'm guessing if I'm doing purifying baths or whatever I'm not going to be able to put clothes on after..."
"For the first procedure, only the two of us. The second and third include much more complex healing work — I will need assistants."
"That might be a problem. I can be unreasonably neurotic about stuff, you know, I'm going to be really fucking anxious until you can get me to sleep. Shite, I might actually resist whatever you're using to knock me out without meaning to..."
There was a flutter of mixed sympathy and surprise from Sauvageau, one of her eyebrows ticking up. "You may wear a gown to the second and third. We'll need to remove it, of course, but we can wait to do that until after you're asleep. If that helps."
"It actually does, yes, good." She'd probably be a little creeped out by the thought that Sauvageau and whoever else was in the room were going to be undressing her as soon as she was unconscious, but it was just healing shite, she'd get over it. Besides, even just thinking about this was starting to make her kind of tingly from excitement, a little smile twitching at her lips — this was actually going to happen, she was getting rid of her fucking scars, this was so cool. She'd get through it if she had to, was the point. "Um, what's the recovery like? I mean, how long until I can do things again. There's going to be the summer tournament, you know, and going back to school, and who knows what else I'll have going on..."
"A week or so, most likely."
Liz blinked, straightening in her seat. "Only a week? I thought it would be— I don't know, this bioalchemy shite is wild, I thought..."
Mind shivering with amusement, Sauvageau said, "No, your identity should resolve and the new tissues should settle within a week. I wouldn't recommend seeking additional bioalchemy work for another six months to a year, but it should be safe to resume duelling within a week."
"Fuck, I didn't— I thought I'd have to wait until August, but they pushed back the summer tournament, because of all the Triwizard shite, it— We can do it in July, before the duelling tournament!" So she wouldn't look like absolute shite in the pictures and shite they took, that would be awesome, honestly, she— "Can we do that? Like, is that okay with your schedule?"
"I'm currently booked through the middle of June. The hospital has its own routine we have to work within, but there are windows in July, and they're all still open."
She could hardly even sit still from the excitement bubbling through— Just, fuck, she thought she'd have to wait until after the duelling tournament! Maybe getting to do it before was amazing, she— "Hold on a second." She popped up to her feet and skipped over to the door, pushed it open and leaned out. "Hey, Severus, can you come in please? We're doing it in July, and I don't know what your schedule is like."
It turns out she needn't have worried about that so much. Severus followed her back into the office, and Sauvageau talked through her calender, but pretty much all of the available dates were fine for him. Hogwarts was letting out on 23rd June, but he planned on finishing all of his end of term stuff the week before — they were actually staying at Hogwarts later than usual this year, for the Final Task on the 21st, so he'd have time to get his end-of-term stuff done long before they were let out. (Not to mention there were junior Potions professors now, so he'd have more help with it than last year.) He did have a few conferences and things, not to mention stupid parties he (they) would probably get invited to by Narcissa...oh, and Liz was turning fifteen, so she'd have to start participating in society shite too, ugh. But July was still far enough away that he hadn't started scheduling other things yet, he was free. Severus suggested Liz take at least a week to settle in at home, but after that she didn't have anything on until the 30th. There were some logistical issues related to the ICW's involvement in the Triwizard Tournament that had resulted in them pushing the duelling tournament back — they weren't leaving until the 30th, and returning home on the 7th or 8th of August, depending on how the duelling schedule worked out. They'd tried to arrange it so all the final matches would be over the weekend, which made obvious sense to Liz, no idea why they didn't do that normally...
After some comparing of Severus and Sauvageau's schedules, they quickly came to a decision: 13th July. They would come to the hospital on the evening of the 13th, and leave around midday on the 15th. Ideally, they'd do it around the new moon, but that was too close to the duelling tournament — the 13th was the night after the full moon, just beginning to wane, which was apparently good enough for ritual purposes.
13th July. She was finally getting rid of her scars in three and a half months — less, by a little bit. As Severus and Sauvageau finalised the arrangements, Liz felt herself grinning, her fingers tapping at her knees.
Three and a half months. She could wait that long.
Soon enough, everything was settled. Sauvageau went through everything they'd decided on with Severus, since she was considered a minor in France and couldn't consent for herself — but he only had a couple of very technical-sounding healing questions, went ahead and signed where he was supposed to with little fuss. There was also stuff about agreeing ahead of time to pay whatever the cost of this stuff ended up being, and that was it, they were done. Some quick good-byes, Sauvageau's son waving at her (forgot his name already), and they were headed out the door.
Walking down the street back toward the apparation point, Liz was practically vibrating with excitement, turning her steps bouncy, almost skipping without really meaning too, she could feel the grin pulling at her face. The exams had sucked, and that meeting had been very intense at points, but now that she had the procedures scheduled, it was really happening, the whole thing had been so completely worth it. Her throat almost hurt from holding in the urge to giggle, or just start shouting...something (she had no idea what), she couldn't stop smiling...
13th July. She could wait that long.
Though, thinking about how much the meeting had been so completely worth it, she reminded herself of the less fun parts of the talk. Severus hadn't said anything since they left, silently walking, thoughts lurching and swirling away somewhere — his mind tightly-contained as usual, his exact thoughts hidden. Not completely blocked off, she had picked up flickers of amusement and exasperation at her inability to act normal at the moment, and there was something else in there, she didn't...
Some of the excitement dribbled away, Liz could feel the grin loosen. For a minute, she just kept walking, watching Severus — both with her eyes and with her mind, but neither were really telling her much. The thought simmering away, nerves churning in her stomach, it wasn't very long before she just blurted it out. (Drugs, dammit.) "Are you angry with me?"
A flinch of surprise, Severus turning to glance at her over his shoulder. Even just with that, that he didn't know what she was talking about, she felt a little relieved, the tangle of nerves relaxing back into the numb warmness of the alchemised marijuana things. "Why do you ask?"
"I was wondering, you know, just... I know I shouldn't curse myself, but, nobody could help, so... I didn't think you would like it."
His mind swirling with something prickly and warm and thick, Severus let out a sigh. "I don't like it, no, but I understand why you did it. I can hardly claim to have never done anything so foolish at your age, and rarely with such reasonable cause. I would have preferred you come to me before taking such extreme measures, but what's done is done."
"I did tell you about it — you gave me a couple potions and told me to go Pomfrey if I need more help, and she said nobody could do shite about it. I just figured that was it." There was a cold lurch in his head, but Severus didn't say anything, just kept walking, vaguely frowning ahead. "Would you have done anything different if I did ask?"
Severus hesitated for a long moment, before letting out a thin sigh. "No, I suspect not. Unfortunately there is little that can be done for some conditions — I'm afraid the only option I could have presented was to recommend experimenting with less well-known potions to better manage the symptoms until the time came to see Béce."
"Yeah, I kind of thought so. Pomfrey said nobody could do shite, and figured you'd object to cursing myself, so, I didn't see any other options."
"As I said, I do understand why you did it." They'd already come to the intersection they'd started at, little curly colourful patterns worked into the low walls blocking off private property from the street — distinctive features to aid visualisation, to make it easier for people to apparate here. Coming to a halt, Severus turned to look down at her, tall bloody bastard. "I'm not angry with you, Elizabeth. Discovering you have been applying curses to yourself to alter basic bodily functions without supervision is somewhat disconcerting. Though I suppose that is simply the lot of any person in my position — teenagers are constitutionally incautious, and yet it is quite impossible for adults charged with their care to watch them at all hours of the day. Unfortunately."
...So, not angry, then — worried. That was just...sort of surreal, honestly.
She mean, if she'd sat down and thought about it ahead of time, she might have guessed that could happen. It just wasn't something that normally occurred to her in the moment.
At some level, she still wasn't used to anyone giving a damn. Even after...however long this stuff with Severus had been going on...
She just hadn't thought of it, was all.
"I'm sorry," she muttered. "For worrying you."
"Such is the way of things." He held out a hand, and said in a firm tone, closing the subject, "Shall we return to the hotel? There are a couple hours yet before the time we'll need to leave to make the show."
...They could go somewhere and do something else until then, but unless she was reading him wrong, he thought she might want a little while to cool off in private before needing to be in public again. Which wasn't a terrible idea, really. "Sure." She reached for his hand without really thinking — normally she needed a second to psyche herself up for it, as much as she did not like touching, but her drugs hadn't worn off yet, so. His mind rushing up against hers — but still calm and well-contained, as it almost always was, occlumency smooth and cool and featureless — but she didn't immediately start preparing to apparate, blankly staring down at their hands. "Um. Thanks, Severus."
A flicker of surprise leaked past the cool blankness shielding his mind, one of his eyebrows arching up. Not sure what that was for, exactly — which was fair enough, she wasn't sure either. It just felt like the thing to say? (For giving a damn, she guessed.) After a couple seconds of silence, he said, "You're welcome, Elizabeth." A funny feeling on the words, not a lie, uncertainty, just playing along. "Ready?"
Pushing her magic out and held close against her, she felt his aura envelope hers — cool and smooth, like a wet autumn wind, a faint tingle of lightning distant on the air. Severus mentally counted them off, and they turned together through nothingness, Liz guided along by the hand.
Whew. That was ridiculous.
The plan going forward is to start alternating writing for this fic and First Contact. There are two more scenes left in the middle section of FC — the plan is to write the first one, then jump back to this fic for a scene, and then do the second FC scene, and then write through the Seventh Task before doing more FC, switching in whatever way feels natural. There are a total of 14 remaining scenes planned for FC, and 16 for year four of TGW, but my writing can be pretty consistent lately, no idea how long that will actually take.
Right then, until next time, bye.