December 1981.

It's only been a few months since the Dark Lord disappeared, destroyed by the Boy Who Lived. His followers scattered or caught and slowly witches and wizards were putting their lives back together. Quill Som was a young witch trying to do just that. She'd just this month began with the Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes, a field Healer. She was 26-years-old but tested by the last decade's trials.


A woman was screaming. Standing knee deep in one of the fountains, a woman was screaming. Amid all the movement and flashes of wand fire, a woman was standing in the cold, motionless and screaming. In her long coat and scarf, Quill Som couldn't tell if she was a witch or a muggle.

Just because the Dark Lord was gone, the chaos that had set in motion still had some momentum. Aftershocks. A giant had been set loose in London and had come to Trafalgar Square.

Three Ministry Departments had deployed personnel. The Beast Division to wrangle the giant. The Aurors to assist, and perhaps capture those responsible. And a team from Catastrophes. Obliviators to handle the muggles. And Healers, like Quill, for first aid and triage. A good plan, but messy in reality.

CRACK! Quill and another Healer Apparated onto the scene and immediately she was swallowed up in the noise. All around her people were running in all directions, spells flew over her head, all aimed at an immense giant. It was evening so the sky was dark and the air was wet. Every spell lit up the night, like low-hanging fireworks.  And every bellow of the giant shook her and sent bystanders into new panic.

Her fresh training struggled to take over. Wand out, she moved quickly keeping her head low. She saw beast handlers nearest the giant. The Obliviators were harder to spot in their muggle garb. (The calmer police were theirs, must be.) Quill knew they'd move the crowds into the tunnel and around corners to get them safe then wipe their memories.

"Don't worry about sorting out who's who. Let Obliviators sort them out." Magical catastrophes had to be contained as quickly as possible, nearly at the same priority as rectifying the calamity. Part of that was minimizing causalities. It was one thing for Muggle Worthy Excuse Committee to explain a broken collar bone, another thing entirely to cover up mass fatalities.

Quill saw a man in a trench coat on the ground, hands and knees, and she hurried over. "Sir, are you alright? Can you walk?" He couldn't - he'd broken to his leg trying to flee.  He was astonished when she drew her wand - a muggle alright - and when she touched it to his tibia. She got him to his feet and pointed to an officer (one of theirs) and said. "You're going to be okay. That officer will help you. Go, quickly!"  So stunned was the muggle that he obeyed.  She watched as the man began talking to the Obliviator, and he pointed back at Som.  The Obliviator nodded as he lead the muggle away.

More sharp cracks in the wind signaled the arrival of reinforcements. Quill looked - Aurors in their red robes.  It was then the giant charged.

“Bloody hell!” With brown curls tied back in a ponytail, hawthorn wand clasped in his left hand and wrapped in first issue auror trainee robes, Lawrence Musgrave was agape on arriving in Trafalgar Square. The giant was big, not quite the height of a double decker, but enough to cause issues. Giants, as beings, were not outside the law and had some control of their actions and understanding that they must not be in such a Muggle environment causing trouble. This one, for whatever reason, had gone rogue. It had been one crazy incident after the next since Lawrence had passed selection and begun his training in July.

The giant had wrenched out a twelve foot lamppost and was swinging it round at anyone who got close. Spells were battering it but its thick skin and hardy, muscular body were proving resistant. It was a veritable fireworks display beside Nelson’s Column. As if incensed by the arrival of Lawrence and his more experienced mentors, the giant charged, flailing the streetlamp as it ran.

The red cloaks around him scattered, running, apparating, dodging. Overawed by the sight, Lawrence was a beat behind, agape. He darted left, covered by a barrage from the increasing forces on the ground. Mistaken in his inexperience, and desperate to get out of the way in time, the trainee auror turned his shoulder. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The lamppost, in all its painted glory, whistled towards him, and he saw what remained of the shattered glass reflect red and green spell flares. Lawrence’s reflexes pushed in a last-ditch attempt to avoid, and then with a crash, everything went black.

He’d not even managed to throw a stunner at the being! He’d been on the scene less than a minute and now he was hurtling through the air, ragdolled over the end of the streetlight at the giant braced to swing it back round, the muscles in its grisly shoulder bulging with the effort of moving twelve feet of steel and an unconscious wizard through the night air. His wand tip smacked his dismayed mentor straight between the eyes as it flew from Lawrence’s hands.

Momentum took the trainee auror up into the air at first, attached to the lamp, and then deposited him without a hint of grace or mercy in the fountain beside the screaming woman. She drew breath for a moment enough to acknowledge the splash of water from the bellyflop, released from her stupor enough to dash away with laboured strides through the cold water, leaving Lawrence to sink face down.

Quill Som's eyes widened in horror (and a bit of excitement) as the giant reaped through the Aurors with a lamppost as his scythe.  Her bravery bolstered after having helped that muggle, Som got a grip on her duty and skirted along the outer edge. A Beings Division agent was trying to limp away from the fray. But what happened next halted her pace.

Not all the Aurors had dodged the giant's lamppost.  Quill and many in the crowd watched as a young wizard took blows, was snatched up, swung about, and then flung across the square and into a fountain. Quickly deciding the limping Beings witch could handle herself, Quill sprinted across to the fountain.

"Leviosa!" She tapped her wand to the Auror's back and his sopping wet robes began to levitate, lifting his corpus proper from the drink. He was out like a light and she feared him dead. She got him out of the fountain and laid out on the stone. They were far enough from the giant to be out of immediate danger.

"Rennervate!" Her wand gave off a red light, and the young wizard with the shaggy brown hair arched his back, heaving awake.

"You're going to be alright, dear! That was impressive." Quill smiled encouragingly as she began to gently venture down his body to see what was broken.

And he was back in the land of the living. The world span above him, and Lawrence’s uneven pupils did an unfocused circuit of his eye sockets.
“You’re going to be alright, dear! That was impressive,” greeted a cheerful, and somewhat reassuring female voice.

He’d done something impressive? Since selection he’d felt he’d become incapable of doing anything impressive. Whatever wonderful, outstanding NEWT grades you got, it meant nothing as an auror trainee. They were tough, strict and took no prisoners with their trainees. Some of those who had started with him had already fallen by the wayside. For someone who had been in the top scores for his final year at Hogwarts, it was a sobering experience. An older, wiser Lawrence, mentoring new trainees, would later realise he was just being stretched given his potential, as well as being tested to requirements, but at 18 it felt brutal.

“Wh- what? Where am I, augh - why does it hurt?” Lawrence mumbled, soaking wet, forehead oozing blood from a raw scrape. December 1981 was a particularly cold month[1] for Britain, and the wind tossed old train tickets and crisp packets across Trafalgar Square. It bit into his cold limbs which were still accounting for each other in shock of travelling through the air to bellyflop into a shallow fountain. “Who are you? What’s-?”

Away from them, the giant let out an almighty roar as stunners battered it unrelentingly from a circle of aurors and hitwizards.
“Giant!” Lawrence exclaimed, attempting to sit up but too disoriented to figure out how, further hindered by the broken ribs and whatever else the lamppost had kissed, or rather torn in his middle.

1.	According to what I can find

The Auror still had his head and it was working, Quill was pleased to observe. She was keeping her calm despite being breathlessly excited in the danger. She was helping someone. She was helping an Auror. Merlin, though, he was rather young, wasn't he?

He stammered some questions and squirmed about. "You can't make them sit still, so don't try. Work as fast as you can." She could hear her mentor in her ear. She might have tried anyway, give the Auror a word to lie down, but she didn't have time even for her name before he was shouting.

"Giant!"

Quill quickly moved to cover the young Auror with her own body, even as she looked for the threat. The way he'd said it, the hulking beast could have been right on top of them! In a moment, she saw the fight was still a ways off, but moving around.

"We have to move, alright? My name is Quill. And you're Musgrave. And it's going to be okay."

“L-lawrence,” the trainee auror replied suddenly, “I’m Lawrence,” it was an almost automatic response as his mind pieced together the fact he’d lost some time and people had moved. “It’s my birthday[1],” he continued, drawing his feet towards his body, "and there’s a ruddy giant in Trafalgar Square. Oh Gods.”

Without further uttering, Lawrence reached out for whatever he could to try and haul himself back up, puling his feet beneath him. Although he’d taken a hit and been flung across the square into the fountain, he was still full of enough adrenaline not to feel all his injuries. He clapped his right arm to Quill’s left upper arm and used his dominant left hand on the edge of the fountain to haul himself up painfully from the paving slabs.

Despite groaning with the effort, and being bent over once he made it to his feet, Lawrence was still keen to see how his colleagues and the giant was faring. He remained gripped to Quill, his left arm protecting his stomach now, as he stared. “Quill, we’ve got to help them,” he urged her, despite the fact he was in no shape to do it, and had lost his wand mid-flight.

1.	12th Dec, 19th birthday

His birthday! Quill blinked. "Unlucky," she breathed.

Quill was amazed when Lawrence Mugrave moved immediately. She'd expected to have to do the heavy lifting, but the young wizard was clearly sturdier than he looked. He all but hauled himself up to his feet, despite a suspected broken clavicle and likely concussion (at least).  Again, she was impressed.

She uttered a word of care as he got himself up, but it wasn't really necessary. They'd begun shuffling towards shelter, but her charge was insisting upon the fray.

"They'll want to play hero, but you're the boss. Better they resent you than perish in your care."

She looked. Just in time.

"Down!" A pod of bronze dolphins was shooting through the air and landed nearby with a tremendous, paver-cracking crash. Quill began to panic, and tried to get them moving again.

"No, Lawrence! We can't!" She swallowed her trembling. "Y-you're done today. You did well. You've done well. C'mon."

He dropped to his knees at her shout, and a sharp pain shot through him. He groaned and leaned against her heavily.
“I got taken out,” Lawrence replied, frustrated, “I’m sorry, oh Gods this hurts,” he moaned, still gripping Quill by her left arm. “I probably shouldn’t have got up, but bugger it.”

He dragged himself back up off the pavement, holding onto Quill for dear life so she could lead the way without him having to look up too much. His head was spinning beneath his messy brown curls, and over the adrenaline rush his nerves were telling him he was going to be black and blue.  It was worse than when he’d come off his broom in a quidditch match and faceplanted the ground. He hoped he wasn’t going to get a rollocking for this. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but it was undoubtedly giant-related.

Behind them, the being in question roared in anguish, crashing down on the steps, landing fists that cracked the slabs.
“W-where we going?” He asked the healer.

Oh, good lad, thought Quill. He'd obeyed Healer's orders and came along, although his broken bones and the deadly projectiles were likely better motivation than her firm request.

"There. That passage." Just behind the nearest fountain was a small tunnel entrance beneath a terrace. Accidents & Catastrophes had been using it for fast shelter. It was labeled.  "The, uh, toilets."

Soon they were there.  An Obliviator dressed as a street cleaner let them by.  "Som's caught a live one," she joked. "Is he a red herring, then?" on account of his red Auror's coat. Quill grinned and helped Lawrence Musgrave have a sit against a wall.

"They'll be Apparating you to St. Mungo's soon, alright? I'm going to make sure they check your head and clavicle. Your tibia might be broken, as well."

If the patient's awake, Apparate. So went the saying.

She reached up and touched his forehead to move away a lock of wet, bloody hair.

"Hm."

She sat back on her heels. She still wasn't sure he didn't have a nasty head injury and she didn't want to just leave him here with a bunch of Obliviators. She took a deep breath and smiled flatly at the young wizard, not sure what to say.

"Tossed by a giant, though. Impressive."

Lawrence limped along with Quill’s help. He gave the obliviator in muggle clothes a queer look for their comments, uttering a sarcastic ‘ha ha’. Despite this, he shuffled past and obediently propped himself against the wall with one leg out and his arms clasped around his middle. The world was still spinning and he was cold as ice from his swim.

At Quill’s touch, his hazel eyes came open again, looking up unevenly.
“Tossed by a giant, though. Impressive.” He managed a lopsided grin, faint colour returning to his cheeks.
“I guess,” he replied a little bashfully. She was pretty, she’d picked him up off the floor and was being incredibly nice about it all. He felt like a complete waste of space. “Better story than my sixth birthday. My big sister tried to blow out my birthday candles and her hair caught fire. Went up like a flash, she was nearly bald for Christmas.”

He laughed without thinking and flinched, his arms going to protect his ribs.
“Think I’m going to feel this tomorrow. Thanks - Quill, for scraping me off the pavement, like.” He reached a tentative left hand to her forearm, patting it. “I owe you a drink. Do you drink? What do you like?”

Quill's eyebrows lifted, impressed (and amused) anew at the tale of the combustible sibling. She quickly wondered if the fire was a natural consequence of ducking towards an illuminated pastry or something with a more fraternal origin...

She looked down where he touched her arm, and tried not to be flattered.

We save their lives. For them it's a miracle. For you, it's Tuesday.

Easier said that done. She probably looked out of sorts trying to come off professional.  "Yes. Well, just doing my job. It's nothing. I do, but you - well."

"Som, this one going to Mungo's?"

Quill got to her feet, her stammering attempt to make some kind of closure with the young Auror interrupted.

"Yes, sir.  Auror Musgrave." She went on to efficiently list of what St. Mungo's would need, and it wasn't a moment more before Musgrave was being helped to his feet for a Side-Along.

Before he was whisked away, Quill did manage to say: "Gin."