As Fauna stood in the lift of the hospital, she almost expected a melodic voice to announce every floor, and for fluttering memos to swoop in and hover over their heads. Instead, however, it was all very muggle. White coats, the smell of antiseptic, and the buzzing of cell phones surrounded her. Even in her jeans and sweater, she felt a bit out of place, and twirled her Hufflepuff scarf around her fingers.

For the first time since the beginning of the school year, she felt grateful to Analiza Snark, who had given her permission to leave school grounds and head to Montrose to visit Tamis Raynor. Tamis, in a hospital bed. Tamis, in the muggle world. There was something very strange about thinking of the Head Auror and 'muggle' in the same sentence. 

The doors of the lift opened on the fourth floor and Fauna stepped out, scanning the room numbers for 416. She walked down the corridors slowly, excited to see Raynor but worried for her at the same time. When Squeak had escorted her from Hogsmeade, the house elf had looked so sullen and suspicious that Fauna had wondered if her visit would do more harm than good.   

Room 416. There it was. Fauna hesitated in front of the closed door, trying to brush off images of finding Raynor in a full body cast, or Raynor not recognizing her, or Raynor doing the chicken dance because she was doped up on meds. Okay, maybe not the last one, but it was almost as scary because of the unlikelihood of that ever happening.

"Everything alright, dear?" Fauna turned to see a nurse stop and look at her quizzically.

"Oh, I'm good. I'm just, uh, visiting someone." To demonstrate this, Fauna smiled at her and knocked on the door.

"Are you family? Related to Anna, somehow?" The nurse glanced at the bouquet of flowers she held in one hand.

"Er... I'm her daughter," Fauna said the first thing that popped into her head, worried that non-family members weren't allowed.

The nurse frowned, and the door opened. Fauna glanced at the red-headed man and then back at the nurse.

"Well, you should really visit your mother more often, dear. This is the first time I've seen you here." Fauna resisted letting out a sigh of relief. Maybe it was the dark hair or the light eyes, or her attempt at looking innocent, but she believed her! The nurse glanced at the man in the doorway. "Isn't that right, Mr. Trevelyan? Tell your daughter that flowers only do so much."

Fauna gave the man a wide-eyed look. Who was he? Did he know? Was he in on the game? "Hi, Dad." Her mouth twitched.

The nurse, shaking her head, continued on with her cart, while Fauna none too subtly tried to peek over the man's shoulder to catch a glimpse of Raynor.

In retrospect, betting both of his snooflas on one hand had probably been a mistake.  Even though he was trying not to show it, Jonas was still sore that Archer had managed to counter his Salvador Dolly with a Puddlemere Express and then finished the job with a Clean Sweep 2000, though the private investigator was suspicious that the latter play had been a not-quite-legal move.  To make matters worse, the pair's midnight raid of the hospital cafeteria a night before meant that the entire hospital was now completely out of sugar packets.  Even if he managed to convince Archer to convert the worth of the snooflas into woolongs, there was no way he could hoarde enough to win the two purple monkeys back in a timely fashion.

In the meantime, he'd settled for other amusements.  He and Archer had purchased a newspaper (though with pounds; unfortunately the hospital shop was still not willing to offer an exchange rate on sugar packets, though they were trying) in order to continue the elder Auror's grand scheme of convincing Tamis that woolongs and quatloos were the official exchange rate in Muggle England.  They had stayed up all night editing it, using Archer's wand to carefully transfigure any mention of pounds or sterling into their own invented currency, and then left the newspaper by Tamis's bed in hopes that she'd get bored enough to pick it up and read it.

In the two days since, Jonas had read the bloody paper so many times over that he felt like he had memorized it, and so he'd moved on to the horoscopes and puzzles at the back.  Luckily, the nice thing about crosswords was that they were easily converted into a team sport.

"Alright, well, we'll skip five across for now," he said patiently, penciling in D-R-O-O-P-L-E as another name for a pillow.  It didn't really fit, but they could come back to it later.  "Oh!  Here's one we ought to get.  Eighteen down.  'Murder She...'  Five letters," he told Tamis helpfully.  "You've watched it.  And this shouldn't be a tricky one, not like the capital of Vermont was.  Hey, do you reckon that means we got twelve across wrong?" he asked with a frown, squinting down at the newspaper.  "There's not another word for 'spotted' that ends in a D, is there?  Because I don't think that 'speckled' is going to work, not if we've got a W to work with -"

The knock on the door cut him off.  Jonas sighed, looking to the offending hallway, and then kindly set the newspaper down next to Tamis.  "Here you are, then," he said encouragingly, flashing her a smile as he stood up to answer.  "If you want to go ahead on it without me, I won't mind too horribly.  Just use the pencil so we don't run into the problem we had with that Monkees bloke, yeah?"

 Since Tamis had been taken to the hospital, there hadn't been any sign of a malicious attack, but both men had agreed that it was still better to be cautious.  Jason MacDonell had shown them that if a wizard really put his mind to it, it would not be difficult to plow through the hospital's security.  They'd taken to keeping the door closed when only one of them was in the room as a security measure.  Luckily, the monetary system that Jonas and Archer had invented served a dual purpose; if anyone happened to walk by and overheard talk of 'Muggles' or 'apparating,' it was easy enough to explain it away as one of the nonsense words that they used when they were betting.

Normally, there was a whole series of secret knocks that they went through, with a variety of procedures in place just in case.  (Jonas still wasn't letting Archer live down the time he'd almost hexed an orderly who hadn't used the Muggly theme song.)  This time, though, the visitor was nominally expected.  Jonas eased the door open carefully, glancing at the nurse, and then stopped, her words registering.

"I - ..."  He froze, looking flabbergasted, and then attempted to swallow and clear his throat all at once. 

Regrettably, it did not work.  Jonas considered himself fortunate that choking to death on fury and doubling over with uncontrollable laughter looked very similar in the grand scheme of things.

"Yes - you - what - thinking?" he managed, barely coherent, as he pointed Fauna into the room. 

It was too funny.  After MacDonell's rampage, they'd realized that it might be safer to register Tamis under a psuedonym so that no one could waltz up to the bloody desk and just ask for her.  His ex-wife's name had been the first legitimate one that had popped into his mind, and unfortunately - hilariously - none of them had thought through the consequences before they'd gone through with it.  Jonas half suspected that Tamis was going to murder him as a result when she was finally allowed up from her sickbed, but he also half suspected that his memory of the look on her face when she'd woken and seen the surname on her wristband would be well worth a tragically shortened life.   

The red-haired man wiped tears from his eyes as he closed the door behind the girl, ushering her into the room.  "Your mother - furious," he informed the Hufflepuff, in between spurts of laughter.  "Inconsolable.  You couldn't - flowers -"

Clearing his throat, he attempted to straighten, grinning from ear to ear as he beamed at the woman on the bed.   "Tamis?" he asked, sounding as if he were about to dissolve into fits again.  "Darling?  Your - our - daughter..." 

To hell with it.  He couldn't do it.  Turning away, Jonas buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking as he was completely consumed with helpless laughter.

Tamis Raynor was doing her best to pretend to be apathetic. Leaning back against the raised back of the hospital bed (she still had not quite managed to keep her wits about her when the not-healer’s-assistance pressed a button to raise or lower it), she did not exactly sit upright on her own, but it was close to it. She was not sure what was more or less annoying, the constant commentary or the little plastic device blowing oxygen into her nose. The silent treatment was a flawed one. She decided the beeping machine recording numbers from a clamp over her finger was far more annoying than either, but it was a close second place.

No amount of mundane inactivity was going to get her to care about his little puzzle she decided. Just as she now did not know that the Capital of Vermont was  Montpelier or that the last word he very well bloody knew but was just trying to tease her into saying was “wrote”. Raynor was not much of a reader despite the stereotypes of her alma mater, at least not of fiction. If she was going to read fiction, she would not sink to the standards of a newspaper. At least that was what she had said a day ago, before she picked up the muggle paper and read about the fiscal year’s worth of woolongs for some major corporation or another…

Reflecting pensively on the currency, the Aurors inward debate turned to whether or not she was going to risk her pride and confront the Healers about these sugar packets and stuffed monkey’s once and for all when a knock, unlike the usual coded one that would have announced Archer’s return, resounded on the door. If she had not been expecting the irregularity, she might have been slightly concerned. Instead, she recognized an advantage when one presented itself.

Tamis waited until Jonas’ back was completely turned before she picked up the erasable lead device – Muggles. If they learned how to answer something correctly the first time there would not be a need for such a haphazard instrument. She peered after Jonas, finally content that whoever he was preoccupied with at the door was not a threat and quickly jotted “watched” into the smudged boxes. Her glory of him coming back to find he had been bamboozled by the nuisances of the English language was only momentary.

She did not even get a chance to silently gloat.

Raynor would have recognized those large, sapphire blue eyes and head of long, straight dark hair, rustling slightly as the Hufflepuff tried to peer around the taller redheaded man. Fauna Blake had been expected. In fact, when the seventeen year old had told her that she would managed to “find a way” and “not to worry”, the Head Auror had immediately wrote a vague and rather misleading letter to Analiza Snark. The result had been adequate, however, even if Squeak disagreed.

It was not the corporeal apparition of the girl. It was the way she had just greeted Jonas. The protest was half formed on her lips but it was too late. The door was closed, the fate was sealed. Jonas turned to face her and positively beamed. Far too late. She gave him a classic tight lipped smile, trying not to cringe at every cheerfully executed syllable. He had stayed with her all this time when he did not have to, she reminded herself. He had risked the fury of his real wife in creating her doppelganger identity. He had – oh bugger it.

The man lost it, doubling over in fits of laughter. “You,” Tamis complained, attempted smile turning to a scowl. She pelted the only weapons available at his back in sequence – her pillows. One. Two. Three. The first one fell short. Arm movement in turn required chest muscle movement and that was still a little too tender to risk throwing too much force into it. The second two at least seemed more likely to nail their desired target, if not with any particular amount of force.

“Fauna,” Tamis greeted the Hufflepuff far more like her cooly composed self, as if she had not just flung three feather-downs at the man laughing manically by the door and was not still giving him a baleful eye.  “You will have to excuse Mr. Trevelyan, he is quite --” The rest of her explanation of just how senile Jonas was with some elaborate metaphorical example was lost on Raynor’s lips when she actually looked at the teenager standing there. Holding flowers.

She wished she had another pillow.

It took every once of willpower for Fauna not to burst into laughter when she saw the look on Mr. Trevelyan's face. She waited until she was inside the room, grinned at him, and then glanced at Raynor.

Her smile faltered slightly. She looked so... so... vulnerable. The pillows practically engulfed her head, and the covers bundled around her gave the appearance of a cocoon. Fauna suddenly felt like she was intruding on some private moment. She was used to seeing Raynor standing straight, in wizarding robes instead of hospital ones, and definitely not with a translucent oxygen tube in her nose.

But her eyes looked bright and sharp, and familiarly narrowed (directed at Trevelyan, it was even amusing). Though propped up on pillows, she wasn't slumped. Casts didn't encase her limbs- a good sign! Fauna subconsciously straightened her own posture, and slapped on a smile.

Trevelyan's laughter was contagious! Fauna found herself grinning for real, then giggling, and then clapping her hand over her mouth as he announced her as their 'daughter'. Raynor chucked pillows at him in retaliation and the shock from that playful action caused Fauna's laughter to die down. Then she laughed again, and her sides ached from her giggle-fit. 

“Fauna,” Tamis greeted the Hufflepuff.  “You will have to excuse Mr. Trevelyan, he is quite --”

Fauna cocked her head at her curiously as she got 'the look'.

"Quite what?" she wondered aloud. "Amused? Amusing? Fatherly?" She threw a grin at the man and set the flowers down on the nightstand by Raynor's bed.

That was when the awkward set in.

"Um... these are for you." Fauna might as well stamp 'Captian Obvious' on her forehead.

She hesitated. She didn't see any casts on her, and she'd just thrown pillows at Trevelyan.

Glancing at her with sudden shyness, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Raynor's shoulders. Well, it was less 'wrapped', and more like she was making a hoop with her arms. The hug was extremely light, and very gentle.

And probably the most awkward hug in the history of all hugs.

She glanced away, ignored the lump in her throat, and looked back at Raynor with a sheepish smile. "Er, how are you feeling?"

"He likes to think he is," the Head Auror replied to the teenager, sending her redheaded companion another dark look for good measure.

As much as she liked to pretend that Jonas Trevelyan's presence was a heinous burden she had to tolerate, she really did appreciate the man's presence. He had been there when she had woken up, and been there consistently in all the days following. He had not had to. She was not his responsibility or obligation, she had not ensured him pay as an extension of his services. His family and business were no doubt missing his regular attendance. He could have been with Anna or his children and instead he was sitting here, forcing her to watch crime dramas on the picture box with him and working on word puzzles. This was not lost on the Auror.

But it was so much easier to continue a charade than it was to try and express that gratitude.

Raynor's chest constricted painfully as if provoked under the scrutiny of the Hufflepuff's bright, blue eyed gaze. It still did that from time to time and was tender to the touch. The not-healers had told her she had broken several ribs, suffered some internal bleeding, and collapsed a lung. Tenderness was to be expected for sometime. That's what they thought. As soon as she could convince her wardens that she was not going to be stricken dead the moment she got out of bed she was finding a way to St. Mungos for some swift refurbishing and going back to work. She was tired of the looks; it was as if they all thought she was going to break. Tamis Raynor had worked long and hard to disprove her fragility and she would de damned if she would loose it over one little mishap.

Explain that to the cough itching in her throat that she held back as if her life depended on it.

She felt... exposed... under Fauna Blake's gaze. As if it ruined who she was in this girl's eyes. As much as Archer told her that it was okay to be human, sometimes being human was not what people needed you to be. It was not what the Aurors needed her to be. Not what this girl wanted to see her as. She needed to be strong, reliable --

"Thank you," the petite woman managed somberly as Fauna set the rather cheerful (and notably bright yellow) flower arrangement on the bedside table.

Silence, heavy and solid filled the space between them.

Then the unexpected happened.

Tamis Raynor was used to others respecting her personal space. Archer Radley was an obvious exception or least to say their romantic venture would have a major complication. But even her closest associates second thought basic touches or physical displays of endearment, and then they were rare and far between. The Auror had not expected Fauna to lurch forward and engulf her in the most tender, delicate hug to date.

The machine monitoring her heart rate notably paused -- then slowly began beeping again. Shock slowly fading.

Raynor remained tense in the embrace for several seconds, shoulders rigid and unyielding. After a moment, they relaxed slightly and she hesitantly (and quite awkwardly) lifted the arm furthest from the girl (ignoring the discomfort it provoked) and pat her uncertainly on the back. It was hard to ignore the lump in her own throat.

They were likely both relieved when the student broke loose. She tried to clear the lump away and found her voice, offering Fauna a half-hearted, half-lipped smirk.

"Never better," she lied. Then shot a side-long glance in Jonas' direction and lowered her voice as she re-addressed Fauna, purposely leaving it at a pitch where it would still carry. "Do you know what a Woolong is?"

Something smacked into the floor behind him, and then he was hit not once, but twice by flying drooples.  It didn't matter.  Jonas leaned one arm against the wall, covering his face with his free hand as he continued to shake with laughter, completely ignorant of the touching display that was taking place behind him.  It took him a good few moments to even begin to recover himself, which turned out to be perfect timing, because the invalid was suspiciously testing the limits of the world that she'd been presented with.

"Of c-course she knows what woolong is," Jonas interrupted in a wavering voice, doing his best to swallow his laughter as he stumbled his way back towards the bed, snatching up the fallen drooples as he went.  He dumped them on the edge of the bed in an unceremonious heap, positioning them so that they were - he hoped - just out of reach of the bed-bound Auror.  "You really think that I'd raise a daughter of ours not to know about Muggle currency, D-dear?"

Throwing the term of endearment in was too much; his voice quivered with hilarity.  Jonas cleared his throat, though he couldn't wipe the smile from his face, and snatched up the crossword puzzle and pencil from the bed stand. 

"Proper job on the flowers, by the way.  She loves yellow," he informed Fauna cheerfully, limping back over to the one armchair in the room.  When Archer was there, he usually had to fight him for it, so it was nice to be able to claim it without an epic battle.  "The woolongs are the sugar packets, and the quatloos are the ones that look like straw wrappers.  That's all the gift shop downstairs will take.  It's a Muggle thing, yeah?"

Clearing his throat, he lowered himself into the chair, settling with the crossword puzzle once more.  Over the past two weeks, he'd gotten very good at ignoring potentially private conversations; fooling around with the newspaper or making origami ducks did wonders when Radley was getting mopey or the two Aurors were having an embarrassingly personal moment that he didn't really care to participate in but couldn't escape.  The hobbies had taken on somewhat of a life of their own, though at least they were a fair way to kill time while stuck in the isolated hospital.

But this time, someone had betrayed him in his absence.  Twelve across was not as he had left it.  Jonas squinted at the letters that had been carefully stenciled in, and then looked across the room, regarding Tamis Raynor with an extraordinarily suspicious expression as he pointedly set the pencil down.

At the very least, Fauna thought, Raynor was just as awkward about hugging as she was. Which perhaps signified that Fauna should have kept the appropriate distance. But she didn't regret it. They'd come a long way since the werewolf attack in October, when Raynor had awkwardly patted her arm. Now she got an awkward back pat! Progress!

Fauna hovered by her bed side, as if she were afraid that Raynor would keel over at any moment, even though she was talking like normal and glaring at someone (Trevelyan) like normal. Trevelyan was still overcome with laughter, but when Raynor asked what a Woolong was, he jumped on that before she could look too puzzled.

As he picked up the pillows off the floor and dropped them onto the bed, Fauna raised her eyebrows at the mention of muggle currency, then blinked in sudden understanding. She looked at Raynor and shook her head in a 'this is what you have to put up with?' kind of way before sending an amused glance over at the man in the arm chair. Did he know Radley? With his sense of humor, he had to know Radley.

"Mmhmm," Fauna nodded in agreement, crossing the room to glance over Trevelyan's shoulder at the crossword. Moving away from the bed gave her the advantage of getting out from under Raynor's hawk-like gaze, at least a little bit. One of the last times they'd met, Raynor had talked about the importance of masking some of her emotions. This was as good a time as any to test out how much she'd learned!

"There's a difference in the sugar packets too," she told Raynor in the instructive tone of voice that she'd started to use during SAWS meetings. "The yellow Splenda packets are worth more. No calories, you know."

Fauna glanced at Mr. Trevelyan and tried her very best to keep a straight face. "As for the Quatloos, it's all in how they're presented. You have to fold them in half just right... otherwise the register won't accept them, and the little drawers will clang shut, and no one will be able to buy anything for a good ten minutes. Touchy machines!"

She smiled at Trevelyan and nudged his arm. "Tell her about the credit cards! Those are the best." They wouldn't even have to think up of a crazy explanation for how they worked. Little plastic cards that charged money with one swipe! Now that was magic.