Knox felt like some of his infallibility had evaporated, to go so soft before Fauna Blake.  But it wasn't as horrible as he made it out to be.  Day by day she was growing up and was certainly no longer just a kid.  She'd learn now, if she hadn't already, that all the adults that had peopled the world up to now had no more idea about what was going on and how to deal with it than she did.  So if you see your old professor crying in his slippers, the world's not re-orienting itself with a violent shudder - you are. 

He still couldn't look up, his mind and body re-adjusting to the emotional discomfort of remembering and acknowledging what felt shameful.  But Fauna spoke next and gave him a few more moments peace without talking.

She said, I'd only been scratched, that pesky passive voice.  He still couldn't decide if he was rankled by it, or if it made more sense.  I only scratched you, he corrected in his mind.  Not scratched by some unseen force, not a scratch begetting itself upon her torso.  It had been the claws on Knox's body that had done it.  But was that any more passive than before? His body, at the time, seemingly no more apart of him than the chair he was sitting in. 

"Must have been chaos," he finally said, realizing how weary he was.  He sat back in his chair again, his eyebrows peaked towards the middle, no longer furrowed in abject discomfort.  "How are the scratches faring?" he asked, deciding to honor a more passive voice as well, for the sake of... ignoring unpleasant things.

"Um, you know, fine. All healed now. Well, there are scars, but... no avoiding that."

Fauna paused, unsure what to say next. Even as a younger teenager, she'd never fretted too much about her body, finding many other things to be self-conscious about. She was of average height, slender build, could blend in well when she wanted to, and could stand out with a goofy hat when she felt like it. No glaring health problems, or awful bouts of acne. All in all, lucky.

The scars from the attack changed that. Not in an earth shattering way, but as she'd been healing she was reminded of it whenever she moved, and she got an unpleasant shock when she glanced back in a mirror after showering. She worried about what other people thought, especially the few she had crushes on. These weren't things she felt comfortable telling a werewolf, who had monthly transformations to go through and other physical effects.

"I'm no longer shuffling about like a stunted ghoul," she joked weakly. "Suppose I can't get other students to carry my books for me anymore, though. That was the fun part." Fauna would have managed with levitation spells and weightless charms, but she'd appreciated her friends doing little things like that for her, and sticking by her in general.

"Glad to hear it," he said, attempting optimism.  He'd chuckled about the friends carrying her books for her - he could certainly imagine such coy antics in the halls of Hogwarts.  There's no way that Hufflepuff didn't jump to, didn't snap to their feet to cheerfully give Fauna every ounce of help.  He knew they'd have rallied for her, despite the controversy that must be leaving toxicity in corners of the school. 

"Scars are quite cool," he commented.  It was unusually casual language for Knox who was normally more verbose.  He didn't really feel that he needed to say more.  He knew many great Mentor Lectures about Scars and their meaning and usefulness.  There was one about the muggle Underground that was attributed to Albus Dumbledore, even.  But he wasn't in the Mentor Lecture mood.  With Fauna here, both of them sitting so exposed, he felt the relief of not being required to be old, wise, or expository.  It was a quiet moment they could both hide from their traditional roles.  And so he wouldn't lecture her about scars - just say that they were 'quite cool' after all was healed and done.

"Do you want to stay? I can fix us something to eat.  Devlin won't be home from work for a few hours."  He proffered the offer even as he stood up from his chair with wood and joints creaking.   He moved back to the big hearth that took up most of the space in the small cottage's main room, poising to prepare a small meal.

It finally felt like they had settled into some degree of normalcy, of easy conversation. Fauna found it surprising that they could casually talk about scars like old friends, after years of fitting neatly into professor-student roles. For now, he wasn't trying to offer sage advice and she wasn't looking to him as a fount of useful knowledge. Odd, but oddly refreshing!

Fauna smiled for the first time she'd arrived at the house. She rose from her seat and followed him to the hearth, tempted to ask about Devlin, but deciding to leave that loaded question for later.

"I'll help," she offered, a weight lifted from her shoulders.


Fin!