Absit Omen RPG

Just before 5pm

Well, it was official. Flora Blake and Grace Eddy were officially fully fledged aurors. He’d given them their badges, allowed them to pick up the red robes and…well nothing more. What else was there to do, really? Did they want some massive congratulations? A celebration? A party? They were aurors, not Irish dancers.

It was a Friday evening, nearly the end of the work day and Pratt was contemplating his last few jobs to do before he took off for the evening. He was sat at his desk, top button of his black shirt undone and tie hanging loose. Slightly receding blond hair was shaggy and unkempt, and his five o’clock shadow was beginning to itch. The kids were with Quincy this weekend, that meant he’d either pull some extra hours to catch up, or hit up a pub or two with his colleagues. Not exactly a difficult choice.

When the open doorway to his office filled with a couple of figures, Pratt looked up from the report he’d been reading and grinned.
“Look at you pair. Crimson robes. Proper grand. Do ye know why we wear crimson? Have ye ever asked? ‘ides the blood well. Easier to wash because that’s the worst stain.” It wasn’t the real reason, but Pratt had always found it convenient. Merlin knew he’d found himself in St Mungo’s enough times over the years.

“So... I bet ye both were wonderin’,” Pratt leaned back in his chair, eyeing up both Eddy and Blake “ye’ve ‘ad these badges and robes and no celebratory present. Well, what kinda boss would I be if I didn’t give ye both a little gift?” The grin didn’t leave his face as he picked up a file from his desk and offered it to the newest aurors. “Happy qualification, Aurors.”

            “It should be supported through the Ministry.”

He lifted his shoulder, a helpless shrug, as if to say this was the way of things. It wasn't that he disagreed - werewolves were members of the public and were entitled to their assistance - but he, more than most, had functioned in a social atmosphere of anti-werewolf sentiment for many years. You didn't wine and dine with Ira without witnessing the casual cruelty of those views.

"You want to chat with Glass?" he repeated incredulously and then, quickly catching on, smiled. "Aye, why not. Ask him for more than you're asking me, Bruce. Go all out."

They could go for a variation of good cop, bad cop. And Bruce made a fantastic bad cop when she wanted something, when she was really invested in it.

"It'll soften him up for me," Balfour clarified, tapping his cigarette thoughtfully. "I can play it off as compromise, he doesn't know enough about my views to think I'm on your side anyway."

And he hadn't forgotten about seeing Glass at dinner with Ira[1] last year, when Bal had crashed Ascendio looking for blood. From that alone he could assume their Minister's views didn't follow a true moral compass.

1.	14th Jan 2011- What's a King to a God?

The werewolf thing is a problem. Understatement of the decade, he thought, holding Ballentyne's knee in place and giving it a moment to relax into that stretch.

"Twenty two years is a hell of a lot of time," Robin remarked - he couldn't even imagine what it was like for the table to have turned so suddenly on someone in that position. "I think I get it. One day you're treating werewolf wounds, the next day you're worried about being the one with the claws. It's a huge change when you got more to lose."

No two werewolves had the same experience but he sympathised with Bruce. He'd not thought himself on any particular side of 'the werewolf issue' before. He knew now that at its heart, it addressed wizarding society's neglect for anything that didn't fit the narrative of its history. Werewolves? As victims? Impossible.

"Okay, we're going to try something new..." he touched her ankle and then gestured to her knee. "We're going to cross your ankle over, got it? No hurry, I'll lift your leg nice and slow and you tell me when it hurts too much."

Robin smiled to himself a little. Physical therapy used to bore him as a young Healer but nowadays he saw its value. "Here we go," he wrapped one hand around Ballentyne's ankle and used his other to keep the leg steady. "I had to do stuff like this for my shoulder too. It's crazy, isn't it?" the wizard snorted. "You get bit, your world goes to pieces but everyone pretends not to see, like it's impolite."

Like you'd committed a faux pas and they were being merciful by pretending not to remark. His bitterness ran deep into anger but he quelled it, more focused on his work.

Not one to accept help from a healer and then ignore it, Bruce obeyed and allowed him to shift her left leg away from her right. She rested her hands on her hips, feeling utterly ridiculous, but hoping this wizard could work at least some magic on her tumultuous limb.

“That happens to most werewolves after their bite. People show their true colours. The werewolf thing is a problem.” Bruce said with a raise of her eyebrows. One person stuck in her head so clearly. Kurby Bagnold and she had been close. Some of Level 4 had even used the term ‘work spouses’ when describing them. Bruce had been his mentor since he’d joined the WCU as a seventeen-year-old apprentice. He’d done his job the night of the attack and then no word for the years until she returned to the Werewolf Wing as his boss once more. That had hurt, and despite them falling back into similar habits, it still did.

“I...mmmmm” she paused, breathing out as he began to move her leg. “I managed twenty-two years working in the Werewolf Capture Unit so I quite stupidly thought of myself as invincible and totally badass. That blew up in my face when I had to face my mortality.” She frowned, closing her eyes as the ache, now duller than before, moved through the torn-up thigh. “Before, it was a job. I had to protect my team and the public. It’s not just a job anymore, and I guess my team has expanded. My priorities have changed.”

It was weird, talking like this to a complete stranger, but there was often a kinship with other werewolves, and Robin Louvelle was clearly an easy person to talk with. What would Athena say when she found out her Brucie had been seeing another healer??

Osha's smile brightened even further at the compliment - she liked picking outfits to wear in the shop, especially now that mum had given up on trying to influence her style. The younger witch smoothed her skirt and did a half curtsy, laughing.

"Thanks! It's an in colour, innit?" she pinched the sleeve of her cardigan. "Been seeing this just bout everywhere. I'm saving up to get a coat in, like, a lighter shade, but Merlin knows it'll carry a stain."

You could never really bring anything nice to Hogwarts without expecting it to bear the marks of whatever madness a new year brought. She'd just have to be precious about it.

"But, right, Jasmines, you were saying..." Osha righted herself from the distraction and looked around the shop again, deliberating. "Jasmine's like... real strong, it could go over the incense. We got some Spanish Jasmine, nice stuff, but you have to be good with your charms."

She knelt, picking up a small pot of overflowing vines from a lower shelf, with a few waxy white flowers spilling forth.

The aroma was distinct as she placed it on the counter. "So, Jasmine isn't from round these parts, needs heating charms. Got to keep it balanced or she'll wilt like nobody's business. Best keep her against a wall, they're vine plants you know."

Even as they spoke he kept an assessing eye on Ballentyne's leg, aware that the muscles they intended to stretch would be pulled down by that friend-or-foe, gravity. Robin approached the witch and adjusted her posture with simple, barely-there gestures. He laughed when she described Bal's relationship with Johann as very public.

That sounded right, and made him fond of his hosts.

"Three and a half years, huh?" he raised his eyebrows. "You think you've changed in that time? I mean, beyond the obvious. Let's try to move your knee, open it up, come on."

Robin gentle touched her knee, nudging it away from her good leg to try and stretch her hip muscle out. "Nice and slow, keep your hands on your waist or ribs," he advised and then added, without prompt, "I came out of my bite a different person. And it had a way of making me realise that maybe the people around me weren't the people I thought they were either, you know."

Even the supposedly tolerant ones, the ones who suddenly didn't want you around their kids or in their homes.

The moment he thinks he can catch a bite with gorgeous Bones, a patronus intervenes. Figures.

Robin felt the mood turn, and his own countenance grew grim. It didn't matter what corner of the world you sprang from - nobody liked a Dementor. They seemed to exist as an anti to everything real and essential to actually living: a manifestation of that thing all Healers supposedly battle, a cessation of being.

That the patronus requested Athena specifically meant she was adept. Good.

            "Fuck. How much have you done with Dementors?"

"Fuck is right," he muttered, reaching back to ensure his hair was properly secured. "I've treated exposure plenty but not a lot of, uh, interactions. And never..." Robin gestured in a fluster as he followed his colleague down the passage back to the emergency wards, "never children."

His mind was buzzing with worry at the thought. Kids made for difficult patients even on a good day. "My hands are your hands," he informed Athena, surrendering himself to her direction.

He felt something he couldn't name - maybe respect - when Professor Storm warned him against pitying werewolves. Feliks did feel bad for them but he could not picture saying that at one of Zeta Pepper's meetings. It did not feel right. If someone had said that about him, he would hate it too, so that was probably why.

            "But would you not agree that someone who cannot control themselves..."

The questions were so serious that Feliks forgot, for a moment, how cold he was and that he was in trouble for sneaking out. His brow lowered into a confused scowl. Like he was angry at this imaginary werewolf who didn't want to be locked up on a full moon.

"They should be made to be locked up!" he blurted out, upset by the scenario building in his mind. "They can't be free! They do not even remember what happens, why do they want that? It isn't fair to everyone else!"

Typical wizarding kind, really. Make it taste good for children but if it was worth it for the effect, the potion had to be disgusting. nothing was ever just simple, everything had to be some sort of a challenge.

Following orders, Bruce twisted on the bed to allow her legs to dangle down off the side. As gravity took her left limb, she visibly winced, taking in a rush of air through gritted teeth. Fingertips gripped the sheet below her, trying to focus her energy elsewhere.

For a friend who was lodging with Spectre, Robin seemed to know little about him. Or perhaps he didn’t fancy sharing. That was fine, Bruce got that; she wasn’t a gossip. But she felt the need to talk about something if they were going to be in this room during this extended treatment. It was like going to a hair salon (not that Bruce knew too much about that one) where one felt obliged to engage in conversation simply to prevent awkward silences.

“Yes, they lunch together. It’s all very public.” Bruce smiled. It was quite the opposite to her and her wife who’d spent about 18 years working on different floors with none of Zora’s colleagues even knowing about her. “I’m not one to know what he was before now, really. I was out of the game for nearly 3 and a half years. People can change beyond recognition in that time.”

The forthright friendliness, oh, Athena knew he'd get on well here at St. Mungo's if people could believe he wasn't after something extra. She agreed swiftly to sneak in a quick bite and gab up upstairs, and the pair of giants that they were, made their way to the stairs.

But they didn't get far. A corporeal patronus (a bird maybe) whipped past Athena and Robin followed closely by a madly fluttering letter. The man at the desk stood up to try and catch them both at once.

"Dementor attack in Devon. Two wix, two children. Apparating in. Get Sawbones," came a woman's voice from the patronus. The letter that followed must have had more of the same.

Athena chilled. Of all the horrible things they dealt with in Creature Injuries, she dreaded Dementor attacks the most. There was so little that could be done. There were no bones to mend nor bleeding to staunch. There were only trance-like, vacant stupors and violent casting about. It was despair made flesh, all goodness stolen away. They made Athena doubt the existence of a creator, why such a being could possibly exist, what kind of balance they could possibly serve.

"Athena?" the witch at the desk prompted, getting to her feet.

"Who was that?" Athena asked at the evaporating patronus.

"Riza. Izzard. She's in Ottery St. Catchpole this week."

"Right. Call in Hedge as well. Fuck. How much have you done with Dementors?" Athena ended up back at Robin again. She was already re-rolling her sleeves.