Liz teetered for a couple steps on coming out of the floo, but she managed to catch herself before she ran into anything. Just in case, a quick sweep of her wand cast a cleaning charm — as long as she was careful she didn't normally pick up soot in the floo, but she didn't want to track it through Severus's living room — before she continued on into the kitchen. It was somewhat dark in here, the shutters closed, so she clicked on the lights, swung her bag up onto the table. She'd tied a spare curtain around the boxes and layered it with cushioning charms and shite, just in case she tripped or dropped something — she unwrapped the improvised package, and started unloading little ceramic boxes out onto the counter.
She was halfway through unpacking her bag when she felt Síomha coming up behind her. "Good afternoon, Liz. I didn't realise you were coming by. Aren't you headed for the hospital today?"
"I am, yeah." It was tonight, she was getting her scars removed tonight, in only hours they would be gone forever — Liz had been practically vibrating with anticipation for a couple of days now, nonstop. She'd only gotten a few hours of sleep the last two nights combined, the combination of excitement and nerves and sleep deprivation and caffeine making everything feel a little distant and surreal. It was fucking impossible to focus on anything, she'd completely failed to even so much as read to pass the time, she'd needed to find something to do with herself. Wiggling the ceramic box she was removing from her bag back at Síomha before setting it down on the kitchen table, she said, "I thought I'd drop this off on my way."
"What are these?" Síomha stepped up to stand next to Liz at the table, picked up one of the boxes. Glancing her way, Liz was a little bemused to find Síomha was not dressed for company — she was in linen shorts (mage-made) and a tee shirt (muggle-made), and nothing else. And Liz did mean nothing else...well, maybe pants, but she could tell Síomha wasn't wearing a bra, or any of the substitutes mages used, quickly wrenched her eyes away to focus back on her unpacking. (No, Liz, do not be a creep about Severus's girlfriend, that was weird.) "Braised duck with..." Síomha trailed off, eyeing the rest of the ceramic boxes. An amused curl on her voice, feeling weirdly empty with the substance of the emotion hidden behind her occlumency, she asked, "A fhéileacáin, did you prepare us enough meals to last while you're away in France?"
She shrugged. "Sure. Severus doesn't bloody well eat enough to begin with, and he's still healing, so. And he's bed-ridden, and you can't cook worth a damn."
"True enough," Síomha admitted. "I would have taken care of it myself, you know — I have friends and cousins who've sent me things, and I meant to make up the difference with takeaway."
...Now that Liz was looking, there were packages sitting out on the counter, presumably sent by the friends and cousins in question. Those hadn't been there when she'd dropped by with breakfast, must have come in since. "Sure, but I wanted to help. Nilanse and I made more than you'd need for just the next few days anyway — I've got some things I have to do before the tournament, so I'm going to be too busy to come over." Severus had been released from the hospital only yesterday, around noon, and Liz had already come by to cook twice — dinner yesterday evening, and breakfast this morning.
While she'd been in Bordeaux, she'd gotten a message from Severus in their bonded notebook that the healers had agreed to release him home, on the condition that he was never left alone for too long at a time. That wasn't difficult to arrange, since Síomha was willing to hang around and keep an eye on him — Liz's understanding that she'd be staying home with him for the next week or so, after that gradually picking up her duties with Saoirse again. Though even after she was back to working full time, Liz was pretty sure she planned on continuing to sleep here? She wasn't really moving in, as such, since she still had her own place back with the Ailbhes, but Severus wasn't supposed to be alone while he was recovering, so. But neither of them could cook at all, and so Liz...
Well, she didn't know, exactly. She wanted to help, that was all. Making sure they were eating properly was something she could do, and she'd been completely restless since she'd returned from Bordeaux, so, she'd really had little else better to do. Preparing several days' worth of meals ahead of time for Severus — and Síomha, there was enough for two people, since she'd known Síomha would be here with him — had been something she could do to occupy herself, and... Well, she'd wanted to do it, she couldn't explain it more than that.
But she didn't know how to explain all that to Síomha, or even if she'd want to, so she just shrugged back at her. Síomha smiled, shaking her head to herself. "How do these work?" she asked, nodding at the stacks of boxes. "I assume they're not just the raw ingredients."
"No, they're mostly cooked already. Some of them need to be mixed and heated up, but all the hard stuff is done. There are instructions on the underside of the cards, see?"
Turning over the box in her hand, Síomha worked a fingernail under the card attached to the lid, after a couple tries managed to peel it off. "Ah, yes, I see..."
"Don't take off the lids before you mean to use them, there are preservation charms and shite built in. Elf stuff, their charmwork is better than ours."
"Understood." Síomha pressed the card back onto the lid. "You didn't have to, but this was very thoughtful — thank you, fhéileacáin. Come back and see your father before you go." She turned and left the kitchen, still carrying the box with one of their pre-prepared dinners, presumably intending to show it to Severus.
Liz bit her tongue, holding in her reflexive protest to calling Severus her father. They'd already had a talk about that, there wasn't any point in having it again.
Despite how much cumulative time she'd spent in this house, she'd hardly ever been in Severus's bedroom. He'd requested she stay out when she'd first arrived — or, not to barge in or poke around without permission, at least — which she'd respected since. Liz could be rather private about her own space, so she understood, and also the whole thing with him dragging her off to his house had been weird, and she'd been...nervous? Maybe that was the wrong word. Very confused, not really sure what was going on or what to do with herself, so she'd been particular about following the (relatively few) rules Severus had given her. She'd peeked in a few times, but she'd hardly ever stepped foot inside.
Not like she was really missing much — it was a very normal, plain bedroom. By this point, after having seen his apartments at Hogwarts and the rest of his house, Liz didn't expect to find anything particularly...she didn't know, embarrassing? flamboyant? It wasn't like Severus was super private because he was hiding anything — he did own a bunch of questionably legal (or plain illegal) stuff, but that was all in the library or the lab downstairs — he just liked his personal space, was all. There was a bed, a writing desk, some dresser drawers and bookshelves. It was somewhat dark and moody in here, the carpet a deep brownish colour, the wood of the furnishings only a few shades lighter, the walls painted a green so deep it was almost black — he'd even replaced the weird speckle plaster stuff that made up the ceiling in a lot of other places in the house (standard muggle thing) with black ceramic tile, faintly glimmering with reflected light. The place was normally very neat, all the drawers closed, the shelves and the desk well-ordered, the bed (black sheets and blankets, naturally) had even been made all straight and perfect every time she'd looked in. Nothing that special, really, Liz didn't think he spent much time here — the bedroom was for sleeping, and to store clothes and shite, there weren't a lot of obvious personal touches or anything.
The big exception were the picture frames, sitting here and there on the desk, a couple on the bookshelves. Liz didn't recognise a lot of the people in them, presumably his friends. One of them she'd noticed included a teenager who looked like a stiffer, proper young nobleman version of Sirius, who Liz assumed must be his younger brother Regulus — he'd disappeared without a trace back in 1980, presumably a fair number of faces she didn't recognise also belonged to dead people. Lily was here, obviously, and one time she'd peeked in while looking for Severus she'd noticed a still, muggle photograph with a middle-aged orange-haired woman wearing a yellow polka-dot dress that looked like something straight out of the 50s, standing over a young boy who was obviously Severus, only nine years old...which Liz could tell, because she'd counted the candles on the birthday cake. A girl with vivid red hair, obviously Lily, was visible more toward the edge of the frame, grinning, probably at how extremely uncomfortable Severus looked. The woman must be Charlotte, Lily's mother, literally the only place Liz had ever seen her long-dead grandmother's face was in old photographs at Severus's house. Or, well, thinking back there'd been a couple at the house in Godric's Hollow too, but other than that.
(Petunia didn't display photos of her parents in the house, for whatever reason.)
The boy in the photo looked kind of miserable, but she didn't think Severus would have it framed and sitting on his writing desk if he didn't consider it a happy memory in retrospect. He'd mentioned before that Lily's father (Ashley) really hadn't liked him, but Charlotte had been nice, so. Given how shite his own parents had been, that might actually have been the first time he could remember anyone doing anything significant for his birthday...
Severus was sitting in his bed, though it didn't really look like a bed at the moment — like the other times she'd dropped by, it'd been transfigured up into a sort of sofa, so he could sit upright. Thankfully, the worst of the damage was lower than his hips, so he could sit up while he was recovering...as long as he was careful about it. He wasn't supposed to put too much weight on the injured part of his leg, and it did go pretty high up, so, there was this thing he was sitting on that curved down a bit over his thigh, suspending it above the surface, and also distributed his weight more toward his lower back, which was neat. Liz couldn't see the thing at the moment, since the blankets were pulled over his legs up to his waist, but she'd noticed it once when he'd been in the bathroom.
Since he'd started recovering, Severus had taken up as much of his normal grooming stuff as he could, which meant the Saturday morning cartoon villain goatee was back. His hair was still very short, and he looked even thinner and paler than usual — but he was sitting up, and he was awake, recovered enough to be getting his sharpness back, mind still and contained, letters from the bloody countless people he corresponded with scattered across a wooden lap-desk. It was reassuring to see him up and doing stuff, sure, but Liz had been maybe irrationally pleased to see his very silly facial hair back to normal, she couldn't even explain her own reaction to herself. He was just more himself again, that was all.
This was her third visit to the house since he'd left the hospital, but she never spent very long in the bedroom with him. It smelled like potions in here, sour and sweet, vaguely citrusy and green, and there was a subtle bite of antiseptic burning at her throat. It wasn't so close to the bleach-based cleaner Liz used to use all the time, but she still didn't like it.
She'd been a bit behind Síomha, having stayed behind to finish unpacking her bag — by the time she caught up, Síomha was showing Severus the box she'd taken, explaining that Liz had come to drop off a bunch of pre-made meals for them before she left for France. In his normal smooth, cool voice, he said, "You needn't have gone to such trouble, Elizabeth."
Coming to a stop a few steps away from the transformed bed, Liz shrugged. "Wasn't any trouble. I've been too worked up to sleep the last couple of days, had to do something to occupy myself."
There was a cool flicker in his head, frowning at her a little. Not concern, exactly, not clingy enough, but she wasn't quite sure how to read that. "I do apologise for being unable to accompany you. I will miss the tournament too, of course, but this is more..." He trailed off, eyes turning a bit to the side to stare blankly at nothing. Not quite sure how to finish that thought, apparently.
She just shrugged that off too. "Shite happens. Just don't almost get yourself killed doing something stupid again, and we're good." That sparked a little simmering of guilt, for some reason, but also more stuff she couldn't read, tangled up and fuzzy, feelings were hard. "I'll have Susan and Sirius there to keep me company, don't worry about it."
One of his eyebrows curled up, in a very Severus sort of expression. "I didn't realise Miss Bones would be accompanying you as well."
"Yeah, that was Katie's idea. Sirius can be a bit much, you know, she suggested I might want to have someone else along to help run interference. Her aunt can be a bit paranoid about her safety sometimes, but Sirius is a scary bastard, Susan said she decided he was protection enough. I'm still surprised she let her come to Bordeaux without any adults to keep an eye on us."
"The circumstances of that trip were such that she considered an escort unnecessary."
"My understanding," Síomha said, "is that Director Bones decided that the five of you are well-trained enough to at least delay an attack long enough to draw attention from the local authorities. Her enemies are also less likely to have contacts in Aquitania than in France, so it was less likely to be a problem to begin with. Severus received a letter explaining her reasoning some weeks ago."
...So it was pretty much what Liz had assumed at the time, okay then. "Right. Anyway, I'm supposed to meet them in Charing pretty soon. Sirius is going to apparate us down to Paris, we'll have an early dinner — he picked out the restaurant ahead of time, apparently he found somewhere that has Seer-friendly mage-style pizza?" There were a bunch of different types of pizza, of course, same on the magical side as the muggle, but the stuff they had in France was the same family as they had in Britain, apparently. There were some differences, especially in the sort of toppings they tended to use, but Sirius said it was pretty similar. "And then we'll be going straight to the hospital when it's time. The letter they sent me said I was supposed to show up a little early, we'll be shown to my room — a little private thing, for people who have multi-day stuff like this, I guess? — and after hanging out there a little bit there's the pre-ritual cleansing stuff, you know, should be ready to start a little bit after sunset, only...so many hours away now."
Severus stared at her through– well, yes, she was babbling, oops, but once she fell quiet he kept staring, something cool and lurching going on in his head. After a few seconds, he asked, "Are you feeling quite all right? You seem somewhat off."
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just tired — I haven't slept much for a few days now — and I'm, you know, fucking excited. I've been looking forward to this forever, ever since you told me it was an option back in like third year, and it's actually happening. And, well, it's also serious magic, weird genetic engineering shite, and they'll be cutting me open and cutting off and replacing literally all of my skin, so, little nervous." She shrugged. "I'm fine, though, really. No, like, second thoughts or anything. Just want to get it over with."
There was a sharp, cold, churning nausea coming from Severus now, probably at least partly due to his own unease at the thought of getting serious blood alchemy work done. They'd talked about that, just yesterday, when she'd come over to make dinner — she'd asked about what the long-term plan for his recovery was, and it'd come up that he would not be getting his fucked-up leg fixed with blood alchemy. She'd been very bemused about that, it... She knew Severus could be particular about things, of course, but having someone rebuild his body like that was crossing a line that he was apparently uncomfortable with. Even in that conversation, he'd admitted that it was irrational, but it was a deep, visceral feeling, she'd been able to feel it hissing away throughout the whole conversation, a swoop in her stomach like the floor was dropping out from under her, and... If the alternative were being literally unable to walk for the rest of his life, maybe then he'd go through with it, but if the choices were walking with a cane or undergoing reconstructive blood alchemy, he'd take the cane. The thought of someone else performing that kind of magic on him just freaked him out too much.
Which was, just...completely incomprehensible to her, honestly. Blood alchemy was sort of freaky, yeah, but it was just one day, and then it was done. She could understand being unnerved by the idea, but when she imagined being reliant on a cane for the rest of her life, that was, just, so much worse, enough that the calculation he was making made no sense to her whatsoever. But, well, Liz was Liz, and Severus was Severus, they were different people — she guessed it wasn't really a surprise that they might place more weight on different things. Severus also wasn't nearly as unsettled about basically being trapped in bed at the moment than she would be — he needed help getting to the bathroom and everything — it was obvious that just being immobilised wasn't as serious of a fear for him.
She'd suddenly realised, during that conversation, that Severus wouldn't have undergone that ritual where he'd physically carved runes in her vertebrae to heal her broken spine overnight, if he'd been in her place — he would have taken the slow recovery, waiting for normal healing magic to do its thing, for six to eight weeks or however long he'd said it'd take for her to be on her feet again. That thought was completely horrifying to her, she couldn't even imagine having to go through that...and he'd known her well enough to realise that, and offered her an alternative that he wouldn't have taken himself. And performed the ritual anyway, even though he'd hated it, since he hadn't been able to do anything about the pain without ruining it, he'd known he would hate it when he'd made the offer but he'd done it anyway.
And he wouldn't do the procedure she was about to if he were her either. Well, he might surrender and have the scars removed, since it was possible they'd start pressing on her heart and cause serious issues, but short of that. He wouldn't, but he'd realised she would weigh things differently, so he'd initially raised the possibility and then arranged things with Sauvageau for her and everything. And he'd never once mentioned how uncomfortable he would be in her place, just, playing along, because he understood it was what she wanted...and was honestly much better for her health in the long run, and since she didn't have his particular neuroses, well.
She really didn't know how to feel about that realisation. It was still new, she'd only put it all together yesterday, and the sleep deprivation was making her head a bit too fuzzy to quite think straight. But it was certainly a thing.
The point being, Severus was thinking about how he would feel in the hours before such a serious blood alchemy procedure — not pleasant, to put it mildly. But at the same time, he knew that Liz really wanted this, so he didn't voice that thought, just gave her a smooth nod. "And yet, you still had the presence of mind to prepare meals for Síomha and I for the next week."
"Like I said, I needed something to do — too scattered and tired to focus on reading. Anyway, I should get going, I only meant to drop those off on the way."
"Of course." Severus felt very amused for some reason, thick and warm and bubbly, with a mild sly slant to it, but whatever he was thinking he didn't say it aloud. Didn't show on his face at all, even, still smooth and blank — because at this point he was mentally recovered enough to be Severus about things again. He was probably making fun of her in there, she could guess that much. "Good luck, Elizabeth. I will be awaiting updates," he said, with a little tilt of his head toward his bedside table.
His side of their pair of notebooks was sitting there, the fresh brownish-reddish leather cover shining in the soft light of the bedroom. "Right. Ah, what do you mean by updates? There are going to be three procedures, and I'm not even going down for the second one until, like, two in the morning or something. I've still never caught you at it, but you are human, so I assume you have to sleep at some point."
There was another bubbling of silent laughter at that, but that time Liz had sort of been trying to be funny, so. "Whatever feels appropriate at the time. I cannot be present, so it will be on my mind."
...He was going to be worrying about her, he meant, but didn't directly say aloud. "Well, sure, but I don't want to wake you up in the middle of the night. I know how hard it can be to sleep when you're injured."
"I will be fine."
"He's still napping in the middle of the day," Síomha said, in Gaelic. "Some of the potions he's on are quite heavy, and healing can be exhausting — he's sleeping more than usual, and I'm sure he will for weeks yet. Don't let the worry of waking him stop you, he'll make up for it during the day."
Severus didn't speak Gaelic, but he did understand some — he hadn't said as much, but Liz suspected that he was studying it somehow, at least in part because of Síomha. Apparently, he understood enough to get rather exasperated with Síomha for telling Liz that, mind sparking and shooting Síomha a sharp look. Liz shook with a snort of laughter, Severus's glare switching over to her. "Sorry," she muttered, shrugging, completely helpless to stop the smile twitching at her lips. She didn't know what she was even laughing at, just, she found Severus and Síomha weirdly funny sometimes, that was all. "But yeah, I'll write, um... I'll at least tell you before and after each one and, like, how long they expect them to last and how they went and stuff. Okay?"
"That will be appreciated," Severus said, all smooth and Severus-ish, pretending he wasn't annoyed and vaguely embarrassed by Síomha talking about his afternoon naps.
"Right. Um... I'll just go, then."
"Very well. Good luck, Elizabeth."
"...Sure." That kind of didn't seem right, it felt like there should be something else to say, but she couldn't think of what it was. This was the culmination of a whole bunch of her medical stuff they'd been talking about for years now, she was going to be different the next time they saw each other, and... She didn't know, it just felt super important, and it seemed like there should be...something else, but she couldn't think of anything, instead just staring back at Severus like an idiot.
They stood there watching each other for a moment, before Síomha let out a thin sigh. "Mother grant me grace, you two — hug your daughter, Severus." That had been in Gaelic again, but it was obvious Severus understood, a reaction flickering in his head—
Liz didn't pause to figure out what it would be, though, took a step back away from the bed, holding her hands up. "No, no, it's fine, I'm not— It's fine, I'll just, er, go now. Um, see you in a few days. Bye."
Some kind of stuff simmering away behind Severus's blank face — at least part of it was more irritation with Síomha, but it was too mixed up for Liz to interpret it from this distance, and she wasn't about to peek — he gave her a little nod. "Goodbye, Elizabeth."
Before anyone else could say or do anything embarrassing, Liz fled, escaping out to the sitting room at the middle of the house. She stalled a moment in front of the fireplace, her foot tapping at the tile and her hands planted on her hips — glaring down at the empty hearth, gritting her teeth against the warmth she could feel on her own face.
(She really wished Síomha wouldn't say that shite right in front of Severus.)
It took a moment to calm down, once she thought she was at less risk of embarrassing herself she tossed a pinch of floo powder into the cold hearth, green flames instantly roaring to life. She was just about to step through when, at the last second, she remembered her bag was still in the kitchen — hissing under her breath, she turned back to retrieve it. By the time she got back, the floo had burned out, she needed to use a second pinch of powder before stepping through into the Leaky Cauldron.
Thursday afternoon was hardly a busy time for places like the Leaky Cauldron — it was normal for cafés and pubs and the like to get busy around lunch and then have another big spike of patrons at the end of normal working hours. Unlike cafés, this place would get steadily increasing business through the evening into the night, on weekends after dark could sometimes get so crowded some patrons would be standing around, which seemed miserable to Liz but whatever. The pub was as dark and grimy-looking as ever, but relatively empty at the moment, only a couple of the tables occupied, a few hunched sad-looking figures sitting at the bar. Some slow crooning music was playing on the radio — a lot of popular English-language music in magical Britain sounded vaguely like old jazz or blues or something to her, though the instruments were different, more, like, cellos and old-fashioned pipes and shite — and for once the air wasn't filled with noxious-smelling smoke, she didn't know what exactly some English mages were smoking all the time but it tasted fucking awful...
(Cannabis was way more likely than tobacco, probably mixed with some other herbs and alchemically processed somehow, but whatever it was it was gross.)
Her stopover at Severus's house had gone a little longer than anticipated, but she'd also guessed that might happen and had left earlier than she really needed to on purpose — but she wasn't surprised when she felt Susan and Sirius's minds already here, sitting at one of the tables. They both looked like they could be muggles who'd wandered in off the street, Sirius wearing denims and Susan in a rather short green and white tartan skirt, both of them wearing tee shirts but Susan's stopping a few inches above the waist of her skirt, like Liz had noticed some muggle girls had been wearing the last couple years. She was wearing tights, at least, but showing her midriff like that was almost scandalous by magical standards, Susan had kind of stopped giving a shite lately. She would dress up like a proper noble girl when some formal event or whatever came up, but for the most part she didn't bother, looking all muggleish and with her hair cut super short and all.
She knew that the sudden change a couple years ago now had come about when Susan had realised she was gay, though she wasn't exactly sure how the logic worked. It wasn't like Susan had decided to entirely reject the expectations she'd grown up with — she was still planning on going through with an arranged marriage to a boy and having children and shite. Having fun with her teenage years before she had to settle down and be responsible, maybe? Liz didn't quite understand it, but it also wasn't her business, so she hadn't looked at it too closely either. If Susan wanted to talk about that whole mess, she knew Liz was hardly likely to get all judgemental about it, so.
The two of them had drinks — Sirius sipping at a small glass of some kind of liquor, Susan's was probably tea or coffee — and were in the middle of talking about something, engrossed enough in it that they didn't notice Liz arrived. She walked right up to the table without either of them looking up until she said, "Hey, sorry I'm late, I got held up."
"Liz, there you are!" Sirius barked, grinning up at her. "Nah, I don't think you're late, we got here early. Amy wanted to have a talk with me before letting Susan here go with us, and you know what her schedule is like, by the time we were done there was still time."
"Sirius has been telling stories about my mother."
Liz gave Susan a glance, curious at the cool deep ringing in her head. This time she meant her birth mother — she normally called the Director of the DLE her mum in private, but she was actually her aunt. Susan was obviously having feelings about talking about her with someone who'd known her, but Liz couldn't say what they were. "You knew her?"
"Of course, Liz was one of the prefects when I was there. Oh yeah, she was called Liz too. I wondered when you were named if it was for her — she and Lily got close after Hogwarts, Liz was Alice's elder sister, they were all pregnant around the same time and bonded, women stuff—" Susan rolled her eyes at Sirius's tone, apparently it wasn't the first time he'd said something like that. "—but Jamie's sister was called Elizabeth too."
"They snogged once, at a party," Susan drawled, smirking. She wasn't just putting that on, she actually did think that was funny, for some reason.
"Yeah, don't judge her taste too harshly — she was pretty high at the time. I was too, of course, but, you know." If Liz was remembering her ridiculous noble family history right, Susan's mum also should have been a few years older than Sirius, but whatever. Maybe that was why Susan thought it was funny? "Anyway!" he chirped, before throwing his head back and downing the rest of his drink all at once. Slamming the glass down against the table with a hard thunk, "Let's get going, then. Don't want to cut off dinner early to get you to the hospital on time."
"I'm going to need a bit longer to finish this..."
"Hang on, I can fix that." Sirius quick conjured a cup, poured the rest of Susan's drink into it, and then they were standing up — Susan had packed a bag, but apparently Sirius hadn't bothered, slung a leather jacket over his arm but was otherwise empty-handed. They stepped out into the back alley, Sirius set a hand on Liz and Susan's shoulders, and after a brief moment of concentration they were being apparated away.
Liz had done her half-apparation trick — Sirius was skilled enough of a mage to work around that even while properly side-alonging someone else, which she understood was not easy — so the trip wasn't that bad, but she still needed a moment to catch her breath on the other side. Once she and Susan were recovered from the apparation, they moved out of the tiny little alley they'd appeared in, stepping out into...one of the magical enclaves in Paris. She thought this was l'Île de la Cité, the same place she'd stayed when visiting Paris last summer (when she'd found Valérie), but she wasn't entirely positive. It was like a lot of magical enclaves in old cities, stone-paved streets, close in on both sides with multi-storey, brick and plaster buildings, retouched with more modern glass and ceramics in recent centuries, with painted-on touches and signs in a mix of vibrant colour, occasional flickers of something magical going on here and there, most obvious in a lot of the signs being animated. Like a lot of magical places, there was also more green than similar environments on the muggle side tended to have, but as tight as the street was they were mostly, like, potted plants here and there, or vines crawling along the railings of balconies, or gardens up on roofs, only glimpses of which she could make out from this angle.
It was a pretty short walk to the pizza place, Severus had found a spot they could apparate to on the same street. The glass face of the building let into a space that had been retouched with wooden floorings and walls, covering the plain brick and plaster of the structure, a long bar along one side with plenty of drink bottles behind it, tables scattered around. The tables were mostly empty, only a few customers seated at the bar — it was still a little early for dinner, not yet five o'clock, and on a weekday, presumably business would pick up in a couple hours. After a little bit of looking around, talking about it, they decided to take one of the tables out on the street. There wasn't really that much room, as tight as the street was, only five tables right in front of the restaurant — looking around, it seemed like the street was divided into thirds, the two sides 'belonging' to whatever was there and the middle kept clear, which didn't allow much space — but it was a reasonably nice day, and there were umbrellas over the tables, so Liz could keep out of the sun. It should probably drop behind the buildings pretty soon anyway, so whatever. There were people walking around on the street, sure, but she suspected it'd quickly start feeling more crowded indoors, when people showed up for dinner, so this was fine.
Besides, even if there were people around, they probably wouldn't be paying much attention to Liz anyway. Sirius stayed behind to order drinks quick, while she and Susan went out to pick a table — Susan was talking about angles, and which direction the sun was going, figuring out which one would be best, but Liz completely lost track of what she was saying, eyeing the band of skin between her hips and ribs. Susan got her attention back with a nudge on her arm, Liz twitched, blinking up at her. "Ah, sorry, I was, um..." Rubbing at her cheek with one hand, she groaned. "Distracted. I'm tired, couldn't sleep."
Susan smirked at her, mind going all tingly. "Distracted, huh? You like the outfit, then."
"Yeah, er... I'm not gonna say anything, because if I do I'll just embarrass myself."
Of course, she didn't manage to prevent that anyway, because Susan burst into giggles. By the time Sirius came back out to join them, Liz's face still felt noticeably warm, but thankfully he didn't say anything about it — if he even noticed, focussed on the three mismatched drink vessels he was carrying she wasn't sure he did. "Right, so, to start off with, I've got beer for me, coffee for Liz, apple tea for Susan..." It was a little awkward, Sirius gingerly setting down his glass, pinned between their mugs, before glancing between the two of them, and crossing his arms to pass them around to the right person. "I hope that's fine, we'll be here for a little while, so."
"Knowing Susan she'll want to get a bottle of wine for the table, did that like four times on our Bordeaux trip."
"Well, it is Bordeaux," Sirius said, grinning. "I think it'd be some kind of sacrilege to go to Bordeaux and not have any wine the whole time."
Frowning at her a little, once Sirius was done Susan asked, "Are you allowed to have alcohol before your thing tonight?"
Liz opened her mouth to answer, then paused. "Can't remember. Hold on, let me check," she muttered, reaching around into her bag. A couple weeks ago now, she'd been sent a thick informational packet from the hospital, with all the stuff about the different procedures she'd be having, where she was supposed to be when, little things about the people involved — she'd met Sauvageau, but there was also a cursebreaker, a healer, then a few assistants/nurses, blah blah — and there were also directions about preparing, and things she was supposed to avoid running up to it. There were some potions that would react badly with the first ritual in particular, the only one she remembered being relevant was her calming potion, which thankfully she hardly ever needed anymore. (She still carried a bottle on her, just in case, but she only rarely used it.) She flipped around to the right part of the packet, scanned over the words...which were kind of swirling a little, tired enough it was hard to focus...ah, there it was, they said... "No, as long as I'm not getting, like, super drunk or anything, it's fine."
"Doesn't seem right somehow, there being a maximum amount of fun you're allowed to have before you go in to have someone work you over."
"I'm not sure you and I have the same idea of fun, Sirius." She'd only gotten actual hangovers a few times, but they were always miserable...
Dinner was mostly a vague colourful smear — she wouldn't remember much of it afterward. The street got rather noisier as the day tipped into evening, the other outside tables filled up, and it didn't feel like too long before the inside of the restaurant was bloody packed. They'd definitely had good timing, seemed like. The coffee was good, and the wine later — they'd gotten a bottle for the table again, because of course — if a little bit on the sweet side for her. The pizza was, of course, amazing. Like the pizza on the magical side back home, the crust was some poofy crispy stuff, flavoured with olive oil and garlic and butter, and some herbs in there too she couldn't quite put her finger on, spread with some kind of soft cheese, with more herbs and shite.
The toppings were a little odd. There was a whole list of options they had, and Susan and Sirius had just checked stuff off, Liz only vetoing stuff she didn't like. (Vegetables, mostly, because she was a baby like that sometimes.) They ended up with shredded beef cooked in a rich red wine -based sauce, and mushrooms, fine, and then strips of some kind of poultry (she forgot which bird it was), and green beans? which didn't feel like a pizza thing? and also crab? What? Like, the combination was a little weird, they were all fine, but maybe not things you'd expect to have at the same time? There were capers on there too, and...
Well, it sounded weird when she listed the things off to herself, and she remembered giving the pizza a funny look when it got to their table — she'd been kind of spacing out during the ordering itself, and in the time it took for it to show up, watching all the people walking around the street, she'd kind of forgotten what they were getting. But she remembered thinking it was good? It was all kind of fuzzy, but she'd eaten it...pretty enthusiastically, she thought. But it was all a smear, she didn't recall the details so clearly.
Being both very tired and so keyed-up she was practically vibrating in her seat was an odd experience. She spent a lot of time spacing out, just kind of staring and not taking anything in, but was also very distractable, finding herself watching the people walking by, or eavesdropping on the conversations going on at the other tables, or idly poking at people's minds, or oh god, why was Susan dressed like that, so distracting. (At least Susan didn't seem to be annoyed by Liz's intermittent staring, just thought it was funny.) She didn't remember much of what they talked about — she honestly didn't think she'd even participated that much at the time, just, in one ear and out the other. It was bloody impossible to focus on anything, feeling heavy, taking too much effort to get anything to make sense, but at the same time all but sizzling with nerves, the blood alchemy thing was starting in only a few hours, it was finally happening, and that was rather intimidating, she'd be getting literally all of her skin replaced, but also fucking exciting, the scars would be gone, forever, her stomach churning and her head spinning with a disorienting mix of anxiety and giddy glee...
The coffee at the beginning of dinner didn't make her feel much more awake, if anything just made the vibrating worse. Liz could not sit still, the balls of her feet bouncing on the brick street — she'd kicked off her shoes pretty soon after sitting down — her fingers playing with her coffee mug or tapping at the table, squirming restlessly in her chair, her attention seeming to get lost and bounce between different things even faster, somehow. The wine later on didn't make that much difference — it slowed her down a little, not quite so jittery, but she could still hardly focus on anything, only half paying attention to Susan and Sirius (if even that much), thoughts wandering...
So yeah, she didn't remember much of dinner. She remembered liking the food, but she couldn't even describe it very well, and she really had no idea what they'd talked about. Susan and Sirius seemed to get on well enough, and they didn't seem too annoyed with her for entirely failing to pay attention, so she guessed that didn't really matter so much one way or the other.
Maybe she should have tried to force herself to rest with a sleeping potion or something? She knew that the first ritual was going to be rather brief, but then they needed her to be awake until the second thing — that was the first of the two big procedures, where they'd cleanse and strip her scars and replace her skin (and also trigger the omniglottalism) — which wasn't going to be until...after two in the morning, probably. The very first thing, the part where Sauvageau was doing the genetic engineering, that was going to be after sunset — it didn't have to be full dark yet, just, after the sun went down, and that wasn't going to be until fucking late, since it was July. There was a whole thing about her altered identity needing to stabilise before they could do the big procedure afterward, and that went more quickly if she was awake. And she was already so tired, who the hell knew if she'd be able to stay up that long...but Sauvageau had said she'd be very ill from having her DNA edited, maybe feeling miserable would keep her awake...
Liz wasn't sure she would have been able to get her hands on a sleeping potion even if it'd occurred to her to get one. Pretty much all the potions she ever took were brewed by herself — she didn't know an effective sleeping potion, and it didn't seem like a safe thing to play around with — or by Severus, who was obviously unavailable. She could have bought one, maybe, but she wouldn't know who was safe to go to...and she hadn't thought to ask Severus. So, instead she'd barely slept for multiple days, and fuck, this was going to be awful...
Still definitely worth it, though...but she was glad she only had to do this shite once. As much as she'd been looking forward to this for literal years at this point, magical genetic engineering and having literally all of her skin replaced was still freaky as fuck.
But anyway, as hard of a time as she was having focussing, dinner passed in a blur with her hardly even realising it — hours must have passed, the sun having dropped behind the buildings all around some time ago, but it didn't really feel like it. Sirius settled up without Liz even noticing — she'd been sort of planning on paying, but they all had money, so it wasn't like it mattered — he led them through the street, now far more crowded than it'd been a couple hours ago. She even got jostled a little on the way, minds blaring loud against hers, bad enough she kind of wished she'd thought to take one of her cannabis things...but adding that on top of the wine and being super tired probably wasn't the best idea, so.
They stepped into an out-of-the-way alley, and Sirius apparated them straight to the courtyard outside of the hospital. It was the same place she'd had her exams before seeing Sauvageau at, she recognised it easily enough — the building was bloody huge, and surprisingly modern-looking, brick and plaster with regular rows of windows, the lobby at the front facing them a big sunroom, a triangular metal-framed glass structure stretching up several stories. The courtyard in front of the building was pretty wide and open, but not unbroken, several green patches here and there with rows of trees tall and thick enough to block off parts of the buildings around the square. She couldn't actually see the fountain at the middle from here, but she could still hear the babbling of the water over the chatter of people around. There were food carts out selling stuff, little crowds of people standing around chatting, or sitting in the grass under the trees or just out on the hard brick of the courtyard. More people than she remembered from last time she'd been here, but the timing had been different, food carts just setting up for lunch when they'd come by, presumably this was normal for this time of day.
It did seem like people on the Continent, or at least in France and Aquitania, liked hanging around in city squares around meal times — that wasn't nearly as big of a thing back home.
Anyway, once Liz and Susan had gotten their bearings back again, they headed straight for the hospital. She still thought it was odd that there weren't any actual doors, the entrance just an open rectangle in the glass wall of the atrium, sealed only with a tingly clingy wardline. Maybe the wards would stop anyone from coming through after visiting hours or whatever were over? Or, maybe they'd be intent-based, so if it was an emergency or something people could still get through. Whatever, didn't actually matter. The atrium was big and airy and open, an oversized version of the French flag hanging on the wall above and straight ahead — this was a public institution, so — a receptionists' desk making a full square in the middle of the space, some little seating areas around for people waiting for something or whatever, more or less the same as she remembered from her first visit.
Sirius paused shortly inside, so Liz walked past him and straight up to the big square counter, quickly getting the attention of a man working there. There was a brief conversation about who she was and what she was doing here, he gave her directions about where to get where she was supposed to go — there was no way she was going to remember that, but thankfully he produced a map of the hospital, she was sure Susan and Sirius would be able to figure it out. After that there were some questions about if they had this or that symptoms, or if they knew they'd been exposed in the last couple weeks to someone who had this or that illness, blah blah. It was only a few minutes before they were done, the man waving them toward one of the exits and wishing her luck.
She was very sure they were going a different way than last time — she didn't recognise any of this. The way they were pointed pretty quickly brought them to a bank of lifts, floors ceramic tile and walls plaster done in light pastel colours, paints and posters on the wall, this looked sort of familiar, but Sirius said they were supposed to keep going, take a turn at this hall here. There were signs up pointing people to this or that department, but apparently the floor with Liz's room wasn't labelled, which was annoying. Susan was looking at the map as they went, walking down the hall for a bit, the colour scheme turning somewhat darker — still pleasant mild blues and greens, just not nearly as much creamy white — and before long they reached what was definitely a cafeteria of some kind, windows looking out into the courtyard—
No wait, that wasn't the courtyard — Liz was pretty sure they were on the wrong side of the building, and also it didn't look right, a smaller, denser garden, bushes and flowers and shite with paved footpaths weaving through. She'd just seen green, and assumed it was the courtyard. Anyway, they followed along the edge of the cafeteria, stepping into another hall leading through a different section of the hospital. This place was actually carpeted, a rich blue with occasional starburst shapes alternating black and yellow, the walls showing some segments of reddish brick. They came to another bank of lifts, and Sirius said these were the ones they were supposed to take up, okay then.
They took the lift up to the sixth floor, a short walk bringing them to a dead end. It looked like there was some kind of office on the other side of the wall, but one that had a counter facing into the hallway, which was something of an odd-looking design decision, but whatever. The woman there obviously heard them coming, looked up to face them as they reached her. Yep, Elizabeth Potter, here for her thing. There was a little bit of paperwork Liz had to sign, primarily financial stuff — the parts that were considered medically necessary were covered by the government, but the cosmetic parts she had to pay for, plus a fraction of the hospital stay the money people had decided was fair — and also affirming that she'd followed the rules in the packet she'd been sent. She was a little surprised that Susan and Sirius also had papers to sign, but theirs were mostly about following the rules of the ward and not poking into people's private shite, blah blah.
Liz was given a little metal bracelet she was supposed to wear while in the hospital, which both identified her as a patient — Susan and Sirius had little badges they had to write their names on instead — and also had an enchantment that would project an illusion with certain medical information in case of an emergency, which was neat. She checked hers just out of curiosity — there was a lot of highly technical medical jargon, but she understood that it was mostly talking about how she was a childhood mind mage who'd managed to break her own brain when she'd been too young to understand what she was doing, and also that she was here for blood alchemy work, some details about that, presumably in case there was some serious complication during the process. (Rare, Sauvageau had said, but it did happen.) Once that was all straightened out, the woman at the desk did something out of sight, and a door clicked open, letting them into the ward.
Not that there was much to see. Inside was just a relatively normal-looking hallway, the carpet black and blue, the walls alternating red brick and warm brown wood panels, lit with pleasant orange-yellow flamelight. The hallway wasn't that big, there was one door leading into the office — though there was another cutout for a counter on this side, to make it easier to talk to the attendant in there — nearby a door leading into the nurses' lounge — this one was open, a homey-looking sitting room with armchairs for maybe six people, there were two in here at the moment, a mumsy middle-aged woman smiling and waving at Liz as she peeked in. There were two separate bathrooms, one for each sex, and then there were six doors leading into the patients' rooms — two of the doors were closed, the other four hanging open, so Liz assumed there were only two other people in here at the moment. This was just meant for certain kinds of outside specialists, she guessed she really had no idea how much use they actually got.
The rooms were numbered, and Liz was in room five, it didn't take long to find it — it was bigger and nicer than she'd honestly expected, really didn't look like a hospital room at all. The bed was hardly huge by any means, but it seemed comfortable enough and not in sterile white, pillows and even a bloody quilt and shite, way more colourful. The room was pretty colourful in general, the floor the same carpet as out in the hall, in the corners the walls showing red brick, but elsewhere painted with a surprisingly detailed forest scene, flowering brush and trees and squirrels and birds and whatever else. It was even animated, branches wavering and leaves fluttering in an imaginary breeze, birds flitting around, which seemed like way too much effort, but okay. One wall had a long bank of windows, heavy brown curtains pushed to either side, a wide view of the city outside — the sky was starting to change colours with approaching sunset, it was almost time, the visible sign making her heart throb and her skin prickle — there were a few bookshelves around...but not holding books, there were board games and stuff, what she thought might be puzzles, and, like, toy blocks, and...
She belatedly remembered that a lot of reconstructive blood alchemy was done with small children. A person's fundamental identity became too unstable around the beginning of puberty to do this kind of work safely, so if they knew someone was going to need some kind of work done, like if they were born with something, it was preferred to do it when they were still a little kid. The earlier the better, Liz had read — sometimes as young as two, but four- to about nine-year-olds were super common blood alchemy patients. Adult patients were normally aesthetic things, or if they needed to fix spell damage like Severus had (though he wasn't having if fixed, for silly reasons), but they probably didn't see as much of the former here, since you had to pay for it, and the latter was rarely needed outside of wartime. So, most of their patients were probably children, suddenly the decoration and toys and shite made way more sense.
A sudden flare of irritation burned in her chest — if Dumbledore weren't a self-righteous stupid bastard, he could have had her scars fixed when she was, like, three or something. He didn't like blood alchemy, she knew, he'd written a semi-famous paper about how evil and unnatural bioalchemy was, or whatever the fuck. If he hadn't ended up in charge of her, maybe she would have gone to someone who didn't have their head up their arse, and would have fucking fixed this a decade ago.
Whatever. She was getting it taken care of now. Just another way Dumbledore had completely fucked her life up from the time she'd been a literal infant, add it to the list.
For a few minutes, they puttered around the room, looking over the games and shite on the shelves, Liz gazing out the window — she could see where the magical enclave ended and the modern muggle metropolis began, the sudden change in planning strategy and building materials making a very sharp, visible boundary — Sirius keeping on a smooth, ceaseless chatter of whatever came to mind. He was mostly covering it up by filling the air with random cheerful blathering, but it was very forceful, acting casual and trying to keep Liz's (and Susan's) mind off of what was coming. The nervousness seemed to have come out of nowhere, Sirius's mind cool and lurching, sizzling with anxiety — he didn't have a moral issue with blood alchemy, no, but it was a pretty serious medical procedure, so, he was worried about her. It'd been pretty easy to not think about it through most of the day so far, but now that they were actually in the room, it'd be starting up any minute now, now he was nervous.
Liz had no idea what to do with that, honestly. She hadn't seen it coming — and not just because she was still sometimes surprised by people giving a damn about her, she wouldn't have thought Sirius would have been that bothered by this. Susan wasn't, a little tense with anticipation, but edging more toward excited than anxious, more happy for her than anything. But then, Susan was probably more aware of how extremely badly Liz wanted to do this, so, she realised the (relatively minor) risks were worth it.
Though, part of Sirus's anxiety was because she would be 'in danger' while he'd just be sitting in here waiting, not able to 'protect' her. After Severus being hurt, yeah, she could understand hating the waiting — his reaction made more sense when she thought about it that way.
They were left alone in here for maybe a little over five minutes (Liz was way too tired and smeary to tell for sure) when there was a knock on the door. An unremarkable-looking middle-aged woman was standing there, curly brown hair cut short in a fluttery halo around her head and wearing plain healer's trousers and close-sleeved shirt in blue and white. Liz didn't immediately recognise her, but she did feel vaguely familiar, like they'd met before — she assumed this must be Sauvageau, then. (They'd only met in person the one time, not enough for Liz to remember her mind or face.) Leaning partway into the room, she quick glanced over Susan and Sirius before focussing on Liz. "Hello again, Liz. And how are you feeling this evening?"
"Tired — haven't been able to sleep for days, too excited."
A mild smile flickered at Sauvageau's lips, gave her a little nod. "Yes, that can happen. You haven't much time to wait, it's almost time to get started." Stepping into the room properly, walking toward Liz, "I needed to discuss a couple matters with you first, it should only take a moment. And you must be filling in for Severus this weekend," she said, turning to Sirius. Stopping with a step of him, holding out a hand, "Béatrice Sauvageau."
"Sirius Black. It's a pleasure to meet you, Béatrice," Sirius said, his voice low and smooth and smokey. It was obvious that Sauvageau had intended on a handshake, but he turned her hand to a more appropriate angle to bend over and kiss the back of her knuckles.
Liz rolled her eyes. "She's married, Sirius. Has kids my age and everything."
Grinning back at her, Sirius chirped "I don't see why that should stop me." Susan just giggled, because of course — when she'd invited Susan to come along, she hadn't realised she'd just encourage him.
Luckily, Sauvageau didn't seem to mind the (sarcastic?) flirting, just moved on with hardly any acknowledgement. She did know who Sirius was, had heard of the whole scandal around his illegal imprisonment and the trial and everything, which Liz guessed wasn't a surprise — he had sought asylum in France, their diplomats had forced a proper trial, that whole fiasco. Susan she didn't recognise, since she was just a random noble girl. (The Boneses were important in Britain, what with their connection to Merlin and all, but that didn't extend to the rest of Europe.) She did give Susan's outfit a bemused glance over, probably thought it was odd that a pureblood lady from such a backward society as magical Britain just looked like any muggle girl off the street, but she didn't say anything about it. The introductions done, she and Liz moved over toward the bed, Liz sitting at the corner and Sauvageau pulling up a chair.
There was a crackle of magic on the air, wards snapping into existence in a dome around the bed — privacy spells, by the feel of them. "Sirius and your friend won't be able to hear anything we're discussing," Sauvageau said, possibly not realising that Liz had already figured out that much by feel.
...Were these wards powerful enough for the average mage to feel them going up? Liz honestly had very little idea what was normal. Whatever, she shook off the thought, said, "Right, okay. You said we had to talk about something?"
"I was going to walk you through the ritual one last time before I leave to prepare the space. There is also an adjustment to the plan I wished to discuss with you."
She didn't really think the first one was necessary — they'd talked about it at their only other meeting, and there'd been details in the packet she'd been sent — but whatever, it wasn't a big deal. "Okay. Not too much of a problem, is it? I mean, we're not going to have to cancel."
"Nothing like that. I wanted to make changes to one of the procedures, but I can't do that without your agreement." Sauvageau paused for just a second, her head turning as she thought over how to go about explaining whatever it was. "As I mentioned the first time we met, I sometimes need to bring in a second cursebreaker to help purge the more stubborn, complex magics — given the elements bound to the scars on your chest, I thought that wise this time. The cursebreaker we will be working with is Matthieu Desmarrais. I've worked with him in the past, he's very good, I've never heard of any issues associated with his work.
"We met some weeks ago to discuss your case, and Matthieu suggested that we purge and replace the tissues affected by the sterilisation curse as well. I'll admit the possibility hadn't occurred to me — the curse is not so complex that it cannot be broken through less extreme methods — but there are benefits to doing so. In particular, growing an entirely new uterus from scratch, instead of attempting to remodel the existing structure, allows me to be far more certain that the defects causing the issues you reported are entirely eliminated."
Wait, what? "You mean, you can just grow a new uterus?"
"Ovaries too, yes. I've already done so, in fact, I have the organs waiting in suspension until they're needed — I wanted to ensure whatever genetic or environmental fault caused the defect didn't present itself. And it's a good thing I took the precaution, I needed three attempts to get it right."
...Jesus Christ. Liz realised it was possible to grow new organs with blood alchemy, it was just wild to hear it spoken of so casually. And also that she had, like, fresh bits sitting in a jar somewhere, or something? what the fuck? "You're talking like you've done that before."
"I have," Sauvageau said — with a little smile and a casual shrug, like this was no big deal. "I've performed complete sexual reconstructions on several occasions." There must have been confusion showing on Liz's face, because she added, "That is, turned someone who was born a boy into a girl, or vice versa. Some of my patients I know have gone on to give birth — I know you've said you have no interest in having children, but you will still be capable of doing so after the replacement."
"Woah." That seemed...more impressive than normal blood alchemy, for some reason. She didn't know why, it just did. Of course, if they were going to cut all that shite out anyway, she didn't know why they couldn't just, you know, leave it gone, and not bother with replacing it. But she remembered Sauvageau had been unreasonably firm about not wanting to do that — and if she could be very sure her periods wouldn't fucking suck going forward, whatever, Liz didn't care that much. She could always just curse herself again if it came to it. "Yeah, fine, we can do that. That doesn't change the procedure that much, does it? That's the third one, right, the one we're doing tomorrow?"
"We would strip and purge the cursed tissues tonight and replace them tomorrow, yes. Whether the cursebreaking process will be shorter or longer is difficult to say — entirely stripping and purging tissues is quicker than more conservative methods, but also requires healing work afterward to prevent secondary injury — though the remodeling work tomorrow should go more quickly. It was going to be a quite delicate operation, but implantation is a more straightforward process, especially since I built the replacement organs ahead of time. It will still take work to properly integrate the new organs into the surrounding tissues, but some of the tendons would have required remodeling anyway. I estimate a full replacement will reduce the overall length of the procedure by...a half hour to an hour, perhaps.
"Of course, there are risks that come with the use of fully reconstituted organs — though, as we were planning on quite extensive remodeling in the first place, the difference is not so significant. These are the same risks we have already discussed before: an intense inflammatory reaction, an increased risk of cancers down the line, and so forth. With these organs specifically, there are potential issues to do with hormone regulation, but in most cases those are easily treatable by any healer."
"So, the same things we've already talked about," Liz said.
Sauvageau nodded. "Yes, the more extensive work means the likelihood of any of these presenting themselves is slightly elevated. I can't say how much exactly, but it would still be a fraction of a per cent in most cases." She paused for a short moment, watching Liz, before asking, "Any further questions about it?"
"No, I'm good, we can do that. Did you need me to sign anything?"
She did, in fact, need Liz to sign something. Technically, Severus was supposed to sign it too, since she wasn't considered a legal adult in magical France, but he wasn't available — he had signed other stuff though, and Liz was old enough to sign for herself back home (if only sort of, with the trusteeship), so Sauvageau thought it would be fine. After tucking the papers away, Sauvageau said, "Very well then, moving on to the ritual. The purpose of this ritual is to propagate the edits I've made to the blood sample I took at our appointment throughout the rest of your body. It will take time for you to adjust — you will be given potions to speed the process along, but you will feel quite ill, perhaps for a couple of days. Your fever should go down in twenty-four to thirty-six hours, but if it doesn't you may need to stay for observation longer than planned. It is possible your body will attempt to reject the alterations, which will require further intervention, but the likelihood of serious complications are quite low. One in two hundred, approximately — I've only seen such an emergency once myself.
"Any questions for me so far?"
"I know all of this already, you know," Liz said, trying not to sound too whiney. Just, the sky was turning colours, it was almost time, she couldn't sit still, her foot jiggling in the air and he heart pounding in her throat. She just wanted to get this over with, honestly... "We talked about it once, and I got the packet and everything."
A little prickle of amusement in her mind, Sauvageau said, "I know. I realise it can be a little tedious, but I do have to go through everything with you now — we have rules about this sort of thing."
Liz rolled her eyes. "Fine, no questions."
"Good. Once we're done speaking here, I will go to prepare the ritual room. The entire process, including the purification beforehand, will take perhaps twenty minutes to a half hour. Once I've left the antechamber and begun setting up, a nurse will come to collect you. She will— I have requested that all the nurses who interact with you be women, by the way."
"Oh! Um, thanks." She didn't think that would make a big difference, but she could still be neurotic over...Vernon-related stuff, and she was already going to be miserable from the side-effects from the work they were doing. So, yeah, that was probably safest.
Sauvageau just nodded. "The nurse will arrive with a few potions, which are necessary to prime your body to receive the alterations. They won't taste pleasant, of course, but you should feel only a mild sense of numbness, the chances of a serious reaction are minimal. You will be escorted to the antechamber, where the nurse will cut your hair short — there is a risk of long hair interfering with the salt line, or the glyphs I'll need to draw on your skin, it's safest to remove it beforehand. Then you will undress and remove anything you are carrying on your person, including the piercings. There will be a box to place your things in, it will be returned to this room with you afterward."
"Right." That part was not going to be fun, especially since she'd have to stay undressed all the way through the start of the ritual, and she couldn't take any of her drugs to make it easier. Thankfully she'd done her desensitisation stuff, because this might have been all but impossible before. "Um, by the way, am I going to have to get the piercings redone afterward? I can't remember if I asked that last time. Since you're cutting off and replacing all my skin and all, you know."
"...Perhaps. May I see one of those?" Sauvageau asked, holding out a hand. It took a moment of fiddling for Liz to get one of her earrings off — the same little silver arc with the beads on the end Daphne had helped her pick out at the Greenwood, a year ago now — finally dropped it into Sauvageau's palm. Her wand in her other hand, she cast a few analysis charms, held it up very close to her eyes, turning the little bit of metal between her fingers. "The ones in your lip and eyebrow are the same material, with the same enchanting work?"
"I think so? I got them all out of a basket, at the same place at the same time."
One of Sauvageau's eyebrows ticked up at the use of basket — she was vaguely curious about exactly what sort of place Liz had gotten her piercings done. But she didn't ask, after a few more seconds just nodded, held the earring back out to her. "The magics on these shouldn't interfere with the process, we should be able to reconstitute the tissues around them. It'll be somewhat delicate, your lips especially, but it should be manageable. You will need to remove these before the first ritual, but wear them to the second."
"Right, cool." Liz didn't bother putting it back in, since she'd have to take it out in a little bit anyway, just held it in her hand. "So, yeah, undressing, and then I'm guessing there's a cold salt bath?"
Sauvageau nodded. "The nurse will have specific instructions, but it is very similar to what you've already done for the exam a few months ago."
She tried not to grimace — she remembered that being very cold.
"Once you're finished with the purification, you'll continue on into the ritual room. At that point, I may or may not have finished preparing — we may be able to proceed immediately, but you may have to wait a short time for me to be ready. The circle will be quite complex, and fragile, if the circle is disturbed it is possible I may need to restart the entire process from the beginning, which will mean a significant delay. I will show you the easiest path through the circle, do not step on anything. There will be an alchemical mat at the centre, where you will lie down — again, while being careful not to disturb anything. Once you are in place, I will put you to sleep, and once everything is ready the ritual will begin.
"The ritual itself is quite short, it shouldn't take longer than five minutes. Once it's finished, I'll move you to the antechambre, where a nurse will pick you up and bring you back here to your room." Sauvageau's eyes flicked over toward Susan and Sirius. "You will be put in a gown before you're taken out of the antechambre. You'll be kept under close observation for ten, fifteen minutes, to ensure there are no serious errors from the ritual, at which point you'll be woken up. I'm afraid you will feel awful, there's nothing we can do about that.
"As we've discussed before, you cannot do the second procedure until your identity has stabilised, which will proceed more quickly if you are awake. The nurses here will keep you awake, unless there is a serious emergency — though I don't imagine you will need the help, as you will be very ill from the ritual. There is a strict schedule of potions you will be on. The ritual alterations will cause some of your cells to die off, and those must be purged before toxins can build up and cause serious organ damage. Some of the potions will aid this process, and others will direct your body to replenish the affected tissues, and others are to lessen the symptoms as much as possible. And there will be nutrient potions as well, of course." Of course, because the materials to replace the dying cells needed to come from somewhere. "Expect to feel very feverish and sore, and you will spend a fair amount of time on the toilet." She nodded toward a door on one side of the room. "A little bit of blood or a peculiar yellow-orange colour is normal, but if the water turns a deep black or a milky sort of white, inform the nurses immediately. You may also vomit during the process, but not everyone does.
"There will be nurses available to assist you, and will be able to answer any questions or concerns you might have. Once their analysis charms show that your identity has begun to stabilise, we'll assemble the team, and you'll be escorted out again. It's impossible to say precisely how long that will take — expect perhaps two to three hours between the time you wake up and when you're put to sleep for the second procedure. So," Sauvageau said, with a little sigh and a nod, "any final questions for me?"
...Other than completely superfluous comments about how fucking awful that sounded, no, not really. "No, just, kind of getting why people don't get cosmetic work down more often."
Sauvageau's lips twitched, her mind ringing with cool amusement. "Yes, it is quite intimidating, isn't it. Though I suppose you haven't changed your mind."
"No no, of course not — I just really want to get this done, I've been waiting for months. Years, really, since Severus told me it was an option."
"Very well, then." After quick leaning over to pick up the case holding the papers from earlier, Sauvageau swung up to her feet, smiling down at Liz. "If there's nothing else, I can go start setting up right now."
"Nope, let's get this show going."
"Let's," she agreed with a little nod. "I'll see you in a few minutes, Liz."
The wait for the nurse to show up was bloody agonising. Susan and Sirius asked what they'd talked about, worried something had come up — Sirius didn't think growing whole new organs in a jar or some shite was nearly as fascinating as Liz and Susan did — and they tried to keep her distracted with random blather about whatever, but it didn't really work. She did write a quick message in Severus's notebook that she was about to go in ger her DNA edited, and the bit about the change of plans with the sterilisation curse, but once that was done she had nothing to do. Practically vibrating with nerves, she couldn't sit still, pacing back and forth, jittering, the room blurring into a colourful smear around her — though that was probably as much because of not sleeping enough as anything — wandlessly levitating the earring from hand to hand and looping around in the air, mostly in an attempt to occupy herself with something. She could feel worry crackling in Susan and Sirius's heads, but really, she was fine, or not fine, blood alchemy was freaky as fuck, she just wanted to go already...
Liz hated waiting.
Thankfully, it wasn't too long before the nurse showed up — it felt like fucking forever, of course, but there was a clock in the room, so she knew it'd only been like eight to ten minutes. She quick double-checked that Liz was the patient, looking at her bracelet, before setting out a row of five potions for her. Jesus, five? Felt like a lot, but fine, whatever. Liz took a few long, slow, deep breaths, before just downing them all right in a row, not even pausing between them, going straight from one to the next. Some of them had really sharp or sour tastes to them, but she ignored it as well as she could, and just kept going.
A couple seconds after she finished them, she was struck with a sudden wave of pins and needles, her head spinning worse than it already was. Letting out some kind of noise, she wasn't sure what, she teetered on her heels for a second before just plopping down onto the edge of the bed. "Woah..."
Curious concern sparking in her head, the nurse asked, "What is it, sweetie?" Chérie, Liz got the impression she defaulted to calling younger patients that, because French. "Dizzy?"
"Yeah, ugh." Really bad, honestly, even with her eyes closed she felt the bed tilting under her, making her a little sick...
"Ah, poor thing. Let me check..." A few analysis charms broke over her, prickling and clinging, Liz grit her teeth against it. "Good, good. You aren't having a bad reaction, but this can happen sometimes. Have you been sleeping well?"
"No, um, barely at all the last couple days."
"That will do it. Here, drink this — it's only water. We'll give it a minute or two, and if you're not fit to walk by then I'll fetch a wheelchair, all right?"
She was feeling a little better, after drinking the water and sitting and breathing for a couple minutes...but not enough she could actually walk straight, so yeah, apparently they were doing the wheelchair thing. While the nurse dipped out to get one, Susan gave her a short, tight hug, wishing her good luck. From this close to her mind, Liz could tell that her reaction to the potions had kind of freaked Susan out a little, what was about to happen suddenly felt very real — the hug was as much to reassure Susan as anything. Sirius didn't go for a hug — he was aware she could be sensitive about the touching — instead settling for a hand on her shoulder, still being all bright and jokey and cheerful, despite the low-key panic simmering in his head.
He really didn't like the idea of some blood alchemist he didn't know working her over somewhere he couldn't watch, but he was trying to play it cool. Not like there was any bloody point, she could tell what he was feeling anyway...
Though, when she thought about it, putting on the act was probably more for himself than her anyway — like Susan's hug, same idea.
The nurse came back, she tipped over into the wheelchair, and they were on their way out, Liz turning to give Susan and Sirius a final wave as she was wheeled through the door. Being pushed around because she could barely bloody walk on her own was a touch embarrassing, but, while she did get a couple glances on their way through the hospital, nobody was really paying them that much attention, so, she just tried not to let it bother her. It was a longer trip than she'd kind of been assuming, but she guessed she shouldn't be that surprised, the hospital was bloody huge. They went a short distance in the more colourful, decorated hallways Liz had seen on the way in, but then the nurse took a turn, opening a door with an oval-shaped ceramic key, and then they were going through what she assumed was a back hallway for staff to get around, the surfaces all in plain white tile, signs pointing this way or that but no decoration or paintings or anything, very plain. There were a few other people around, in healers' or nurses' uniforms, occasionally a patient in a gown or in a wheelchair or unconscious on a wheeled bed being escorted through, but it was very quiet, enough that she caught echoes when they were going through intersections.
After some minutes of being wheeled along, taking multiple turns and a short distance down a lift to another floor, the nurse used her funny-looking key to open another door, and they stepped into what was obviously the antechambre for the ritual room. It looked very similar to what she remembered of the one outside the funny exam room thing from her last trip here...actually, it might be almost identical? The surfaces were a mix of dark blue ceramic and wood panels an earthy brown, lit with a uniform glow but turned down low, deep and moody. The wood-panelled part had a bench, that was the changing area, there was a bathtub and a shower, made out of the same blue ceramic as the tile — she remembered the shower had been to rinse off afterward, but she was going to be unconscious this time, presumably someone would take care of that. She didn't remember the last place perfectly, but it was familiar, the only unfamiliar part a square outlined in yellow right in front of the only other door in the room, didn't know what that was.
"All right," the nurse said, wheeling Liz over into the wood-panelled section. She did something that made a clank in the chair, presumably locking the wheels in place. "You'll undress, put your things in one of these..." She moved around in front of Liz, stretched up to pull a plain ceramic box off of a high shelf, set it down on the bench. Liz reached over to drop the earring she was still carrying in there, as the nurse started talking again. "You'll need to remove everything on you, including your jewellery, and the bracelet. Do you need help getting those out?"
She shook her head. "No, I can do them." Getting them back in could be uncomfortable, but.
"Good. Once you've undressed, you'll take a dip in the tub. To do the thing properly, you'll need to fully submerge, from head to toe, and hold yourself there for five counts. If you slip and don't hold yourself down for five seconds, start over again — it's in a row, not added together. Okay?" She waited for Liz to nod, before moving over to the yellow square, fiddled with something on the floor before pulling a metal railing along one side out of the tile, extending up to about waist-height. "For you to hold on to. There are enchantments built into this square that will remove most of the moisture. It will feel quite cold, but it won't be as bad as that exam I saw you've done already. You will stand here for about thirty seconds or so — the timing isn't so important on this one, just wait until you don't feel dripping anymore. Your hair might still be noticeably wet, but that's okay, as long as it isn't dripping. Okay?"
"Yeah, got it." This was going to be miserable, between having to be naked and being so bloody dizzy and cold, but she'd manage, it was fine. "No magic, like last time?"
"Oh yes, of course, no magic. I understand you can't suppress your mind magic — so long as you don't do anything actively, that should be fine, but don't cast anything else. Any other questions?"
"Aren't you supposed to cut my hair off?"
Smiling all warm and soft, the nurse said, "Yes, sweetie, I'll get that on my way out. While you and the healer are in here, I'll be waiting just outside — if you need help with anything, give the door a good knock and I'll hear it. When you're done, I'll be bringing you back to your room, but I understand the healer wants you asleep for that. So, ready?"
Oh, well, now Liz was thinking about this random woman washing off and putting a hospital gown on her naked, unconscious body, she hadn't needed that put in her head. Shaking it off as well as she could, she said, "Yeah, let's go."
Still smiling at her all warm and soft — very mumsy, this one — the nurse moved around behind Liz, started gathering up her fucking impossible hair. Occasionally a finger would brush against her neck, bringing her mind slamming close, she tried not to flinch. It wasn't especially offensive, the woman's mind actually feeling cooler and smoother and more professional-like than she would have guessed from the smiling and the use of sweetie and all, it was just loud. After a few seconds, the woman muttered, "Your hair is lovely, but it is very stubborn..."
"It's like that. Part of why I'm getting rid of it." Though, she remembered Sauvageau had said that her hair was still going to force itself to the length that it liked, no matter what she did with it — that was a separate magical trait from the other stuff, and one that was much more difficult to get rid of, for whatever reason. But how awfully messy it was, and how it resisted styling charms and potions and stuff, that was going to be...
This was the last time Liz was going to see her hair.
The ritual they were about to do, only minutes away now, was going to get rid of the shitty magic stuff, and also change the colour. It was going to look completely different tomorrow. Not immediately after the ritual — that was going to change how her hair would grow, but the bits left after most of it was cut off would still be there — but when she woke up after the big procedure, where she'd be having all of her skin cut off and replaced, it'd grow the new colour after that. She remembered Sauvageau saying the weird thing where it always grows back might not kick in, healing stress, they'd give her a potion if it didn't...
It was about to gone, forever. She'd already fought to wrangle her frustrating fucking hair for the last time, earlier today. The significance of that hadn't occurred to her at the time, just, routine stuff, automatic.
She'd never have to deal with it again, for the rest of her life.
While she was distracted, there was a flicker of magic, and her hair flopped down around her head — much shorter, wisps only a few inches long, tickling at her ears. "There we go," the nurse said, another crackle of magic as she vanished the rest of it.
Vanished, poof, it was gone, forever.
Liz could feel herself grinning, her throat tense with giddy giggles she barely managed to hold in.
A final check that she was doing okay and didn't need anything, and then the nurse left, the door clicking closed behind her. Liz stalled for a moment, taking slow, deep breaths, trying to work out the shaking in her fingers. She would have expected herself to be nervous, uncomfortable over the whole needing to be naked part, but controlling her breathing was mostly an effort to not giggle like a maniac, the twitching excitement, boiling hot and tense in her chest, she couldn't...
Her hair was gone. She fucking hated that shite, she had for years — basically ever since she'd been old enough to have any kind of opinion about anything at all (if at first only because it was annoying to manage, granted, she hadn't cared what she looked like yet) — and she'd never have to deal with it again.
Just like she'd never have to deal with a lot of things ever again.
In only a couple of hours, her scars were going to be gone.
So, yeah, it took a little bit to calm down — once the jittering had gone down enough she could comfortably hold her wand, she cast a mirror illusion. There was a scattered nest of little black wisps around her head, all that was left of her hair after the nurse had cut the rest off, and also a big damn grin on her face, her teeth clearly visible. Anyway, piercings off, yeah, do that. The earrings were never too difficult to deal with, she dropped the second in with the first after a little bit of fiddling, but her lip ring was more annoying — especially when she was too busy smiling to get her lip to loosen up right to grab the bloody thing comfortably — and the one in her eyebrow could be a bloody pain to deal with. (It wasn't really meant to be changed frequently, like the earrings.) It didn't help that her fingers were feeling a little numb and clumsy, from whatever the fuck was in those potions. She managed to get them out without too much trouble, kicked off her shoes, drew them up to her hand with a wandless levitation charm and dropped them in the bin, along with the ID bracelet.
She would have expected to need to psych herself up to undress, as stupidly neurotic as she could be about that sort of thing still, but that wasn't the hard part at all, too bloody giddy, she never had to deal with her shitty hair again, she just wanted to go. The hard part that she was still bloody dizzy. She tried to push herself up to her feet, and then just immediately plopped straight back into the wheelchair, letting out a hard puff of breath — coming out with a little edge of a giggle, because this was so fucking silly, honestly. (And they were doing the ritual, it was time, she couldn't even—)
It was awkward, but she managed to pull the skirt of her dress up, worm it over her hips, and then pull it over her head. Right, okay. She repeated the process with her chemise, leaving her sitting in the wheelchair in her pants. Okay, her hands on the arms of the wheelchair, she took a long breath, and then pushed herself up — she staggered for a step, the room spinning around her, caught herself with her feet spread wide. Untying the waist of her pants, they started sliding down her legs, but got hung up a bit above her knees, stance too wide to fall further than that. She didn't really trust herself to be able to stand on one foot right now, so she sidled over a bit and sank down onto the bench. The wood was unexpectedly warm on her skin, some kind of enchantment, maybe? She couldn't actually feel the magic, the enchanted bit must be somewhere underneath, the heat filtering up.
Anyway, she reached down to untangle her pants from her ankles, tossed them into the bin — then a second later she leaned over and dragged the bin closer, tucked her pants inside the chemise. She'd belatedly remembered the nurse would be carrying this back to her room, so. Maybe a silly thing to be worried about, but whatever. Right, so that was everything, no she just had to get over to the bath, hopefully without falling on her face and—
Oh, wand holster, take that off too, stupid...
It only took a single attempt at a step before Liz decided she was just too dizzy to walk over to the tub without falling over and maybe bashing her head on something. So she sank down to the floor and crawled over there instead — she felt weird, crawling across the floor on her hands and knees while completely fucking naked, intensely self-conscious all of a sudden, but it's not like there was anyone else around, so she just tried not to think about it. She got an arm over the side of the tub, pushed herself up and, sort of, rolled sideways over the lip and into the water.
And fuck, it was cold, Liz gasping at the countless little prickles against her skin, sharp even through the weird numbing effect from the potions. She had no clue why these purifying baths had to be so fucking cold, but it was miserable. The water didn't just smell like salt, also some sharp herby something — sage? mint? — and it was also terribly cold, almost painful on the more, er, sensitive spots. Actually having to fully submerge herself was going to suck, but the longer she took the colder she was going to get...
A couple deep breaths to psych herself up, her hands propped against the sides — she found a ledge under the water, obviously meant to hold herself. She leaned back, hooking her hands and feet under the ledge, and pulled herself under. The shock of cold sweeping over her head and face had her letting out a gasp of breath, and she immediately sat up again, her whole body shaking with hard coughs, ugh, she'd inhaled some of it, fuck fuck fuck...
She managed to hold herself under for five whole seconds on her second attempt, and immediately threw herself out of the tub, rolling over the lip again to catch herself on the floor on her hands and knees, water sloshing out to run across the floor, drips noisily pattering against the shallow puddle. She was shivering now, hard enough it hurt, feeling cold and stiff and numb — she was badly tempted to cast a warming charm on herself, but no, no magic, if she did she'd just have to do the fucking salt bath all over again. Clenching her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering, she glared at the door into the ritual room, and forced herself to move, crawling over to the yellow square right in front of the door. She grabbed onto the post of the handrail with both hands, dragged herself up onto her feet, sidled over to the middle of the square.
There was a prickle of some kind of magic on the air in here, but it was very subtle — which made sense, couldn't be something that would interfere with the ritual. She stood there, leaning against the railing and shivering, feeling colder by the second as the magic slowly wicked the water way, clenching her teeth until her jaw hurt, her joints aching. Thankfully, it didn't take too long before she stopped feeling drops of water running along her skin...and she didn't think it was just because she was numb from the cold, though it was honestly hard to be sure. She reached up with one hand to flip her hair around, but she didn't notice any droplets get shaken loose, so, she thought this was good enough?
It hadn't felt like a whole thirty seconds — though, as tired as she was and how badly her head was spinning and the cold hurt, it was hard to trust her own ability to gauge the time — but she guessed there had to be some advantages to being bloody tiny.
Once she thought she was dry enough, she hesitated for a moment, still leaning against the handrail and glaring at the door. Sauvageau was on the other side, and Liz was completely naked — that was just, you know, uncomfortable. She might have hesitated for longer, if she weren't still a little giddy from the realisation that she never had to deal with her shitty awful magic hair ever again, and also she was fucking cold, she just wanted to get this over with at this point...
The ritual room itself was a square maybe eight metres to a side, every surface made out of uniform white tile, though it wasn't as hard on the eyes as she might have expected: it was surprisingly dark in here. There were a bunch of candles around, stood on the floor, and a lamp giving off of a smooth, even, blueish-white light, and that was it for light sources, shadows clinging deep in the corners and even the bright parts of the room pretty dimly lit. A large fraction of the room was taken up with the ritual circle, though thanks to the darkness and her head still spinning a bit she couldn't make it out very well. At the middle was some kind of pale greenish stuff — presumably the alchemical mat — around it a circle of greenish-blackish grains, glittering faintly in the candlelight, the circle surrounded with an absolute mess of runes drawn in multiple different colours of chalk — Egyptian, looked like, she recognised some of them but she couldn't make out enough to make any sense of it — lines connecting the circle to other circles, more runes, more stuff in them, there was another larger circle (though smaller than the central one), this one drawn with what looked more like white ash, surrounded with multiple layers of runes, very complicated, candles thick all around, some bowl in the middle holding something she couldn't make out — her altered blood, maybe? — and there were more shapes and circles with stuff in them, candles here and there, it was a huge mess...
Sauvageau was kneeling on the floor at one edge of the formation, scrawling out another row of glyphs in Egyptian, illuminated by the light of the lamp. And she was also naked, surprisingly...though Liz realised after a second she really shouldn't be surprised. The person performing a ritual was part of it, also inside the circle, so, she had to be just as careful with contaminants as Liz. Made sense. "Liz, you're just about on time," she said, distractedly, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'll only need another moment." Finishing the line she was on, she glanced up — Liz cringed at the eyes brushing over her, but it was vague, unfocussed, and only lasted for a blink — and then nodded at the middle of the circle. "Go ahead and lie down — don't touch anything."
"Um, I d-d-don't know if ahhh, I can do that." Fucking shivering, talking was hard...
Sauvageau glanced up at her, which, would rather she didn't just now, thanks. At least she wasn't looking too closely, but the attention was still uncomfortable. "What do you mean?"
"Potions made me rr-rr-rreally dizzy, fall over."
"Ah. Yes, that can happen. I'll have to carry you over, one moment."
...Okay, that sounded seriously fucking uncomfortable, considering they were both naked right now, but Liz guessed it was better than messing up the circle and having to wait however long for Sauvageau to fix it. She was tired, and cold, and she just wanted this over with — if a few moments of intense discomfort was what it took, so be it.
Or at least that's what she was thinking at first, but actually doing it was another matter. Sauvageau finished whatever she was doing over there, set the chalk and the lamp aside...and then she actually turned off the lamp, the room suddenly even darker. Liz could still see, a bit, there were enough candles in here to fill the space with a low, warm, orangeish light, but it took a couple seconds for her eyes to adjust. She cringed at the feeling of eyes on her, shrinking against the door — she was still leaning against it for balance — her stomach churning and her skin crawling, Sauvageau moving across the room toward her. "Do you think you can—"
"St-stop looking at me. I can feel it."
"Oh." A deep cool shock reverberating through Sauvageau's mind, she paused for a moment — and then the tactile sense of eyes on her skin lifted away, Liz letting out a little sigh of relief. "That isn't a phenomenon I would associate with mind magic."
"No, it's a Seer thing." Or a weird combination of mind magic and the Sight, whatever.
"I see." Sauvageau continued this way, and while Liz could feel a vague pressure of her attention, she wasn't looking directly this way, the feeling was manageable. "Do you think you can avoid stepping on anything if I give you an arm to lean on?"
"...I w-wouldn't rrrisk it, no." She really wished she could, because being carried in there would be intensely awkward, but she didn't want to, like, accidentally drag her foot through some runes or something.
"Very well. I normally only do this with young children, but I suppose you're small enough it shouldn't be too difficult." Sauvageau stopped nearby, attention pressing in, like a constant weight pushing on her — she wasn't directly looking at Liz, but she was still paying attention to her, watching out of the corner of her eye. "If you could step away from the door," she said, holding a hand out. For Liz to hold on to, for balance.
"Um. Okay." She took in a long, deep breath, turned wavering from the bloody shivering, let it out in a heavy sigh. Reaching to grab at Sauvageau's arm — gritting her teeth at her mind pressing against hers, smooth and cool and calm but still very loud — she leaned away from the door. Her head spinning, she staggered a step, nearly fell over again, leaning on Sauvageau's arm.
"Steady enough for now?" Once Liz nodded Sauvageau began to move, her arm turning in her grip, and— She grimaced, gritting her teeth as she felt eyes on her again, her stomach churning and her skin crawling, her throat tightening and— Sauvageau stepping closer, arm gently turning out of Liz's grip, going around her shoulders instead, her eyes moving down Liz's body as she moved to—
Her skin practically jumping at the touch on her back, a hard hot flare spanged through her scars (like touching the edge of a frying pan), Liz lurched away, some kind of noise wrenched out of her rigid throat. A cold flutter in Sauvageau's head, she snapped her arm away, stepping back, Liz bumped against the door, leaning her weight against it. Hugging her arms around her middle, she bowed her head down — in a reflexive move to hide her face, which was a silly thing to do, given the situation — she took a moment trying to calm down, taking one deep breath after another, the scars down her back throbbing and her ears ringing and her skin crawling...
Eventually, she thought the shaky tightness in her throat had settled enough for her to talk. "Sorry. PTSD moment." It was fucking stupid, she didn't know why the fuck her brain had decided to do that all of a sudden, just, she hated her brain sometimes, that was all.
Sauvageau did know what the muggle term meant — she'd used the French one, Valérie had been aware of it — which was good, because it meant Liz didn't have to explain. But at the same time it was not good, because now Sauvageau was very uncomfortable, thoughts turning reluctantly in her head. She'd known Liz had issues, obviously, but they hadn't really told her the details — she was thinking to herself they might have gone about this a bit differently if she'd been aware ahead of time. "Will you be able to bear it given time, or do we need to rethink our strategy?"
"Um, maybe, I 'unno..." It's not like she had any fucking clue why her brain had decided to be stupid in the first place — she'd been excited a minute ago! Hard to guess if she'd be able to control herself when she didn't even understand what was going on. "Could we...put me to sleep first? and then you c-c-c– fuck..."
She hadn't managed to get the sentence out, but there'd been a click of relief in Sauvageau's head. "Yes, we can do it that way. It will be a little awkward carrying you unconscious — I'm accustomed to doing that with much smaller children." It wasn't quite spelled out, but she understood that Suavageau was saying that she normally carried patients into the middle of the circle, when they were children. She guessed little kids weren't trusted to properly follow directions, for things like the purifying bath and not stepping on anything. Sauvageau was a little worried that Liz would be difficult to handle when she was all limp and floppy, and not able to cooperate — especially since she couldn't do any magic to make it easier — but it should be doable. "As soon as you're ready, lie down, and I can sing you to sleep."
...Sing her to sleep? Probably a weird magic thing, whatever. Liz kept standing there breathing for another moment, waiting for the shivering to calm down... Oh wait, no, the shivering wasn't just for panic reasons, she was also cold. Stupid. A little bit of the tension had gone out of her limbs by now — though her joints ached a bit, but cold — and her ears had stopped ringing and the sharp heat had gone out of her scars, so, close enough. She started sliding down the door, self-consciously pressing her knees together as she went — Sauvageau wasn't really looking at her, but she was still very aware that the woman was standing right there, it was uncomfortable. Eventually her bum reached the floor, she let out another shaky breath, inched away from the door. That was enough room, she turned and laid down.
Still dizzy, and shivering, she kind of bonked her head against the tile, but it wasn't that bad, it was fine. She was laying with her arms wrapped around her chest, and her knees close and tented up at a forty-five-degree angle, which was silly, Sauvageau was going to be taking her body apart later tonight, but she couldn't help it. Another couple seconds to gather her nerves, she cleared her throat. "Okay, I'm good. Let's go."
She grit her teeth as Sauvageau's eyes crawled on her skin, but they just quickly brushed over her before lifting away again — placing her in space so she could figure out where to kneel down next to her. There was a little bit of hesitation as Sauvageau sank down to the floor, but Liz thought that was mostly physical discomfort, starting to get to an age where kneeling down on the floor wasn't super easy anymore. (She had to be at least Severus's age, probably significantly older, and mages aged weird, so it was really hard to say.) Of course, she wasn't super old either, but Liz was far too uncomfortable to stare like a perv or anything, her head tilted a bit away, to face the wall just there, gritting her teeth as Sauvageau's attention focussed on her again, resisting the urge to squirm, arms tightening around herself. "Here we are: last chance to change your mind, Liz."
Shaking her head, Liz muttered, "Fuck no, we're going. Just do it."
There was a flutter of amusement, cool and reluctant, still a little unsettled by the sudden shift in Liz's mood a moment ago. "Very well. I want you to try to focus on your breathing, slowly in and out. This will only take a moment."
Right, breathing, Liz could do that. Closing her eyes, trying to ignore everything else and, just, not think about Sauvageau right there, she took in a long breath, turned all thin and shivery from how bloody cold she still was. It came out as more of a sigh than anything, stuttering funny because she couldn't stop fucking shivering, but whatever. She was interrupted halfway through the next breath, twitching at Sauvageau's fingers touching her face — her hand settled light on Liz's forehead, and, despite how incredibly awkward this was, at least her hand was warm. That felt a little nice, actually, and Sauvageau was focussing on the magic she was about to do, her mind smooth and cool and calm, seeming deep somehow, reminding Liz of crossing the Lake on those little boats back in first year, the water below her deep and still...
On the next breath, Sauvageau started to sing, low and slow. It was a litany, obviously, maybe some kind of soul magic? It wasn't very long, Liz thought there were only two unique lines before it started to repeat, again and again, some kind of magic on her voice, warm and slippery against her skin, like droplets of oil...
Two breaths after that, she started to feel heavy, her shoulders sagging against the floor, the grip of her arms around her loosening. Her head was spinning even more than it had a moment ago, numb prickles sweeping over her skin, woah...
A breath later, enough of the strength had dribbled out of her limbs that she couldn't hold her knees up anymore, her legs flopping limply down to rest wherever they ended up. There was a faint edge of discomfort at her privates being unhidden, but her head was too spinny, the feeling falling through her fingers...
A breath later, her sense of the room was fading into a numb blur, she could hardly feel the floor against her back or the hand on her forehead, or smell the smoke from the candles or the ash and chalk and sharp hint of some kind of herbs, or even feel Sauvageau's mind close against hers, everything disappearing under a smooth cool blank...
She didn't remember taking the breath after that.
This arc, to do with Liz's blood alchemy procedure, while be a total of three chapters. I'm going to do the whole arc, plus one or two scenes after that, before jumping back to start on the next block of chapters for the guardianship thing.
Right, next one whenever I finish it, woo.
