Feast of Saint Valentine Aftermath Ⅲ

On the Fourth Floor, the third door to the right within St. Mungo's is the Perry Winkle ward. St. Mungo's is bustling with bone-weary medical healers in lime-green robes and mediwizards and mediwitches. The emblems on their chests reveal their profession that of a crossed wand and bone.

There are countless patients from the latest giant attack last night. There were so many wounded that some of the wards had to forcefully be expanded. Thankfully some of the patients had been saved and stabilized, while others still hinged between the veil of life and death. The worst of all were the patients that could not be saved and could only be comforted and made to feel no pain in their last minutes. It was one of the hardest lessons a healer could learn.

The old lift in the hallway rumbled up and down. The golden arch hanging directly above the lift doors showed the floors. The engraved number would light up whenever the lift stopped at a floor. Within the arch, the Fifth floor lit up, the visitor's tearoom and hospital shop. The elevator slowly began its creaky descent only one floor below to the 4th floor.

A beautiful middle-aged witch with golden hair and icy blue eyes emerges from the elevator wearing a long black skirt. Druella Black (nee Rosier) stands tall and stern, but the crinkles around her eyes give her emotions away. She had not slept for the past two nights and had consumed very little food or water since then. She had only briefly stepped away from the bedside of Alastor under the strict orders of the Healer Hippocrates Smethwyck to eat otherwise she would be banned from Alastor's bedside. She would normally have ignored the Healer's orders except Healer Smethwyck appeared so sleep-deprived that he would likely enact her banishment personally with great relish.

Knowing when to pick her battles, Druella temporarily retreated and ate a few pasties that tasted terribly dry accompanied by a lukewarm cup of tea. Her footsteps sounded and crisp and firm as she ignored the famous portraits on the wall and the crystal bubbles filled with candles lighting the hall. She does not even pause to glance at the permanent resident's ward of St. Mungo's. She briskly continued onward until she arrived at the sign that read "DANGEROUS," Perry Winkle Ward: SERIOUS CURSES. Directly underneath is a handwritten card with quill and ink. The card held in the brass holder reads, Healer-in-charge: Lancelot Prewett, Second-in-Command: Hippocrates Smethwyck.

Swiftly moving forward Druella moves the ward that is small and dingy and pointedly sniffs. The only window in the entire ward is narrow and high and set on the wall facing the door. Most of the light came from more shining crystal bubbles clustered in the middle of the ceiling. The walls were of paneled oak and there was a portrait of a rather vicious wizard on the wall, captioned, URQUHART RACHARROW, 1612-1967, INVENTOR OF THE ENTRAIL-EXPELLING CURSE.

The small ward typically only has a few patients at a time and is nearly filled to the brim. Some of the patient's curtains are pulled, while others cough and gasp in agony. Healer Smethwyck's green healer robes are crumbled and stained as he tends to the patients along with a team of healers. The worst cases were housed in the ward, while patients in recovery were moved to other wards to make room. The only exception to the rule is Senior Auror Moody.

Healer Smethwyck would have long ago sent Senior Auror Moody, but for security reasons, Senior Auror Moody could not be moved. The mediwizard had barely been able to force a team of Aurors away, but not the stubborn purdblood witch. He had a livelihood to consider and grave patients to attend to.

Healer Smethwyck pushed the matter of Senior Auror Moody to the back of his mind. He changed crimson-stained bandages trying to keep the wound clean and helping it cauterize. Dark curses, in particular, were difficult to cauterize and if a healer wasn't careful a patient might bleed to death before a wound closed. In the worse of scenarios, a highly experimental muggle method of forcibly closing might even be implemented.

Druella pointedly ignores the busy healers in the ward and pulls the linen curtains around Alastor. She takes a seat on the edge of Alastor's bed and suppresses a whimper. The brave Auror lay pale and wane against the starch white linen bedsheets. His wavy brown hair had been cut shorter by the Healer's to ensure nothing infected the wound. A longer hair tendril brushes up against the side of his scarred cheek.

The pureblood witch reaches out and tenderly brushes back the tendril of hair. Druella's silky hand lingers against the face of Alastor. Her blue eyes soften as she traces his features. The deep jagged scar on the side of his cheek had been dug even deeper. A simple black patch lay over his right eye covering the missing eye. The end of the scar juts up and over the brow just into the forehead.

Feeling a hint of pain in her heart, Druella draws her hand back at the terrible unfairness of the situation. She sighs but is unable to pull her gaze away. She attentively studies the faint scar across Alstor's nose bridge, where Alastor had recounted the grisly tale where a curse had very nearly taken his face off. The thin scar at the edge of his lips and stretched down under his chin towards his neck was a failed attempt to slice open his jugular.

Her Alastor was rather brash at times, an utter Gryffindor, but he was loyal and true. Despite everything, a part of Druella had been utterly charmed by the ruggedly handsome Scottish Auror. He did not see her as used nor old but as a beautiful witch.

A trace of pink touches Druella's ivory-colored cheeks. Despite considering herself well past such emotions, Alastor made her feel young and hopeful once again. She would once have sworn that such emotions were impossible for her to feel again. And yet here she was once again having fallen head over heels for a dashing wizard.

Pulling her hands tightly in her lap, Druella flinched in remembrance. Once she had believed the insincere flattering words of Cygnus (Black). She had foolishly fallen for the rich pureblood's words and permitted herself to be taken. In the end, she had left Hogwarts barely on the cusp of womanhood and had given birth firstborn daughter, Bellatrix, shortly after.

Druella did not regret her three daughters, but she did wish that she had been the wiser. She should not have been so easily swayed and flattered by the attentions of Cygnus nor much less prided herself on being the subject of envy from the girls around her. She knew that she had immensely made her parents proud by marrying and breeding with Cygnus Black. Yet her wishes and desires had all been cast aside, she was a pureblood and divorce was never an option. It was till death do us part and she had dearly wished to vanish from the face of the earth.

The death of Cygnus had come as relief and guilt to Druella. She had fantasized for many years of his death, but abruptly she found herself free. She could hardly remember a time when she was free to fulfill her own desires. It was such a strange and foreign concept to her. Yet amidst it all, she slowly began to regain the confidence and poise that she once held.

A pained moan startles Druella back to the present. "Alastor," she quickly gasped taking hold of his warm, cold hand. "Can you hear me?"

Abruptly Alastor sits up and winces in pain feeling a searing pain behind his right eye. "Here," Druella hastily pushed a pillow behind his back to help him sit up.

Alastor grumbles a thank you, before wincing and finding that his vision has shifted only to his left side. Cautiously, he brings his right hand up only to feel a patch of leather over his right eye. If he pressed even slightly harder, he felt nothing but an empty, hollow feeling. His right eye was gone. He was blind.