Broken Promises (Sept 3)

[Snick]

Soon they were off and slowly moving to the nurse's office. They carefully manipulated her to the offices, got off the broom, moved her through the doors and to the nurse's office. Siobhan steadied her.

"Which of us is going to explain to the nurse what happened and why we had to use magical force to get her here?" Sio asked.



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"Can't we both?" Pratt scrunched his eyebrows. "I don't think we'll get in trouble for incapacitating her. She needed to see the nurse and refused. What were we supposed to do? Finding a teacher to help might have taken too long."



He fell back into a chair with a huff. So much for the calming draft's effects. Nothing like an injured brat to kill a buzz. That was the second time in a few days that Cam had managed to bring him down from a high. How irksome.



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Patience came hobbling in with surprising alacrity for one so aged. She looked at the mobile students and looked at the petrified student, her eyebrows quickly becoming lost in her hairline. "What is this? What is this? You two know how to undo a petrifying charm . . . you did not bring her to me for that . . . unless . . . yes, speak up. . . '' she glared at Pratt making a motion with her hand like one might to encourage a dog to sit up, then noticed the gash on the child's leg. "Is this the only reason she is here, or is there more? Tsk, tsk," she said, grabbing the dittany and her wand. "Why is she petrified?"



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"No, it's n-" Pratt couldn't get a word in edgewise. "Just the gash. She refused to come see you, Ms. Dearborn. We didn't want her to make it worse or get an infection or bleed to death. We didn't have time to get help, so we petrified her."



He brushed his hair from his eyes. "You might, uh, want to leave her that way," he advised the nurse. "She will probably fight you if you don't."



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Patience was about to revive the girl, but stopped. "She'll fight me, you say? You think I can't handle this rainbow headed snit? Well, I won't put up with any nonsense. You know that from experience, young Phrixos. I haven't seen much of you though, Miss O'Brien, not since your . . . " she glanced at Mr. Pratt, no, it wouldn't do to mention Miss O'Brien's first menses in front of him. The poor girl's face was turning beet red. Patience shook her head and laughed. "Just part of life. Nothing to be ashamed of, child. Let's see to your friend here."



She cleaned up the wound. "It's a bad one." She brought out the Dittany and swabbed it on the deep gash. It took more than Dittany. She needed some wand work as well. Muggle healing would have called for stitches. But a quick charm and the right touch of the wand would pull the lower tissue together. The girl had lost some blood. She finished dressing the wound.



"Very well, Phrixos. Put her on the cot and we'll wake her up. I'll want to give her some blood replenishing potion. Is there anything I should know?" she asked, wondering if she should go through the girl's bag, her intuition telling her she might need to know what was there. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she looked at Phrixos carefully. Years of practice had taught her to be sensitive to the influence of potions on students and teachers.



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Pratt looked sidelong at Siobhan, swallowing hard. Gross, periods. He didn't want to hear about that. Besides, Siobhan looked so embarrassed. He couldn't blame her. To him, having to stand up in front of the whole class with a bright red stain on your pants sounded a thousand times more humiliating than standing in front of class with a boner.



Carefully, he moved Cam onto the cot. "She has a prescription for Calming Drafts," he answered, chewing on his bottom lip. "That's all I know."



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"She had it with her?" Patience checked her pocket when Pratt motioned to it, extracting the flask. "This needs to stay here. She can come here when she needs it. Students aren't supposed to self medicate. They need to come here when they need medication. That's the law. Students were reminded before school that all medications were to be checked into my office."



"Do you know if she was on any of the potion?" If so, she would need to keep her for an hour before she could give her the blood replenishing potion.



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"I didn't see her take any, but she might have earlier," He tried to think back to when he'd taken a drink. It was tossed back to her, she caught it, and she put it in her back pocket, he thought. He could picture her taking a swig, but he was certain she hadn't. His memory was playing tricks on him. Or was it?



"Should probably play it safe, Ms. Dearborn," he shrugged a shoulder, trying to ignore the slight tightening of his gut.



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Patience put the potion away. "If she shared the potion, and you knew anyone who tried it, you would tell them never to do so again," she told Pratt with a smile that looked oddly menacing. If this was in a flask, chances were there was a larger container in her room. She would send a house elf to check her room while the girl was resting.



She tucked a blanket around the girl and got the blood replenishing potion ready. "Time to wake up the princess. No kissing necessary, Prince Charming," she added with a wink to Pratt, laughing at the indignant huff from Siobhan.



She waved her wand. "Finite Incantatum.''



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"Right, yeah," he was staring at his feet and nibbling on his chapped bottom lip. Pratt couldn't look Siobhan or the nurse in the eye now. His shame sat like a rock in his stomach.



An expression of disgust, resembling the face of a frog, was on his face when next he looked up. "Don't worry," he laughed humorlessly. "I wasn't considering it."



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Siobhan stared at Cam, waiting for her to start clawing at them. Or scream, or cry, or kiss Pratt gratefully. Dearborn was in the corner with a hired house-elf in a nurse's outfit. Must be from the village. Siobhan didn't know the school employed any of them. But Dearborn was old-fashioned. She was also old... she probably liked using house elves better than people for assistants.



Soon Dearborn was back and the elf was gone. Siobhan wondered what it was all about. She hoped Cam wouldn't be angry any more. More importantly, she hoped she found someone else to depend on. Like Lorccan. He could handle her better than Pratt.



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The entire time she had been petrified, she had been aware. Aware of her surroundings, aware of what was being said. It filled her with anger, pain and maybe a bit of betrayal. She had been wrong to put any trust in anyone here. Pratt had said to trust him and give this school a chance. And when she asked them, told them that she would be fine, they instead petrified her and hauled her off to the nurses office, the one place she never wanted to go.



Places like this only brought the image of her father walking out firmly in her mind. As the nurse released her from the spell, Cam blinked. Once. Twice. She took a deep breath in before sitting up silently. Her face was emotionless save for her eyes. A fury burned deep within them as she looked once at Pratt and then Siobhan. Hatred and the promise that they had just now made an enemy of her was clear. Without a word, she slipped off of the bed and stood. There was no waiver in her legs as she stood there for a moment before walking past them toward the door, not even so much as touching them.



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"Mr. Pratt and Miss O'Brien, you will both leave now. Miss Finley, I'd like you to stay and talk with me," she said, her voice growing sweeter. "You and I need to get to know each other before I can let you leave." She smiled her best great grandmother smile, but the warmth was genuine. While she said she'd like Cam to stay, it wasn't a request; it was an order.



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"But Ms. Dearborn," Pratt started, then sighed and headed for the door. "She was so... I think she needs a friend to... I'll be right outside, just in case."



He frowned, meeting Cam's eyes as he exited. The girl was new and had no other friends, as far as he knew. It was obvious she was apprehensive about nurses for some reason. Why was none of his business and, as difficult as it had been to get her to talk to him the other night, he didn't have time to find out, anyway. Not with the way she had been bleeding. Now she was mad, but hopefully she would soon figure out he was only looking out for her, he was worried as he would have been if any of his other friends had been hurt.



(exit Pratt)



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Siobhan sighed, "I was only trying to help. I'm sorry, Cam, if I hurt your feelings . . . but your leg looked really bad . . . I hope we can be friends." With that, she hurriedly followed Pratt outside the door.

[Snick]

She hadn't been trying to leave. She had heard that the nurse wanted to replace the blood she'd lost, which honestly, Cam didn't think was as much as Pratt and Siobhan had been making it out to be. She barely withheld a snort when Pratt spoke of her needing a friend. If she needed one, it certainly wouldn't be him or Siobhan. But it was clear to her now, she didn't need one at all. Not if they were going to be like that. horsefeathers this school.



Once they left she ambled back over to the cot and tried to force down a shudder. Not completely successful, she trembled as she sat on the cot. Scooting back, she pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs in a defensive pose. Her gaze avoided the nurse, wave after wave of apprehension flowing through her.



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Patience waited while those two left. This girl was a tough one. She'd been hurt, but she was wearing her hurt and anger like a shield, a proud shield. She didn't look Cam in the eye. Instead, she sat next to her on the cot and put her wrinkled, age spotted, blue-veined hand right next to the girl's foot. It was easier to talk sometimes if you weren't looking right at a person, like when you were walking.



"I have a grand-daughter like you. She usually likes her hair blue. She twists it into dreads. Her mother called her dreads ugly snakes . . . yelled at her and called them snakes, so then, of course, my grand-daughter animated them and made them move like snakes." She chuckled at the memory and hoped Cam understood that Patience Dearborn was not her enemy. "How about you tell me why you were so afraid to see me?"



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When the nurse sat down next to her, Cam's heart began pounding in her chest. Her chin rested on her knees, eyes closing tightly. She was still trembling. When the woman began to speak of her granddaughter, Cam wondered why until she got a little deeper into the story. So her granddaughter was a metamorph? Interesting. She filed that bit of information back in her mind.



"Why would you listen or care about a 'twit' like me?" she said, a bit of sting in the word. Oh yes, she had heard what the nurse had said while she was prone on the cot.



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Patience smiled. "I believe the word was snit, not twit, meaning someone given to a burst of temper. I use the same word for my grand-daughter like you, and I've been given the term a few times myself over the years. A term of admiration, I assure you. I like fire in a person. Be glad you're a snit."



She reached over and touched the girl's wrist, feeling her pulse.. too rapid and weak. She may still need the replenishing potion. "Now, I answered your question. You answer mine. Why are you afraid of me?"



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Her brow furrowed, feeling a bit irritated to have been corrected. She watched the nurse out of the corner of her eye, her pulse jumping slightly when she touched her wrist. Cam leaned away slightly out of habit.



"I just don't like doctors ok?" she said, turning her face fully away. The second part came out in an almost whisper. "Too many bad memories."



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Well at least the child wasn't afraid of her personally. She was just afraid of her generally.



"Tell me about the bad memory, Cam. I've lived a long time. There is very little I haven't seen or heard. I'm told I'm pretty easy to talk to. Why don't you give me a try?"



She gently draped a thin blanket around the girl while she waited for an answer.



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She was quiet for quite some time, hoping that the woman would just leave her be. After awhile though it became clear that she wasn't going to, and Cam shook beneath the blanket, but not from the cold she felt from the loss of blood. She spoke slowly, still unsure. She didn't like talking about that night.



"My mother and I were in a rollover accident when I was eight. It was while we were in the hospital that we 'discovered' what I was. The nurses were shocked because my hair changed," she murmured quietly. "When my Daddy got there, he was arguing with my mom. Turns out she knew the whole time and had been hiding it from him and from me. He couldn't take it, and he walked out on me in the hospital. Then the fighting began at home until he finally left for good. It's all my fault."



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So the child's magic had been revealed to her father and the rest of the world in a hospital room? Patience's arm went around the girl's shoulder. "You poor little lamb. That isn't your fault. One, your magic is a good thing. Two, your mother deceived your father. She should have let him know all along. She should have prepared him." There was a three, but she wasn't saying it. Three, her father's love should have been bigger than his bigotry, and it wasn't, and that was a damn shame.Therefore, her father was a jerk and was best hexed and forgotten.



"I hope your father eventually works out that this is something you can't control. This is not your fault. It's about your parents, not you, so stop blamin' yourself, and certainly stop blamin' healers," she said, slipping into her slight Georgia accent, as she found it convenient when being motherly.



"I don't know if you know it, but you just gained a new grandma. You come to me whenever you need me. I'll be here, and I'll listen. I always have room for an extra grandchild."



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"How can it be a good thing? All my magic has done has brought pain!" she said, moving from beneath the woman's arm and beginning to pace, wrapping her arms around herself. "I wish I didn't have magic. I wish I didn't have hair that changed color. I wish I was normal so I can live with my dad again. I hate my mother for what she's done. I hate my grandparents for sending me here!"



She raised her hands and gripped at her forehead. A combination of stress, lack of blood and the surge of magic giving her a harsh headache behind her eyes. Her hair burst into a riot of color, for once truly resembling the unfortunate nickname Pratt had given her. "They don't want to know me, they don't want to know why I'm angry. They would rather medicate me and ship me off. But I don't want to take it. There isn't anything wrong with me other than having magic. Is there a way to get rid of it??"



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"Don't take it then! Be angry! You've earned it! Sounds to me like you've got some letters to write. Tell them. Let them get to know you. What's stopping you from writing to them and telling them why you are angry?" Patience believed in expressing frustration.



"As far as getting rid of your magic, well, I know of no way to do that outside of illness or death. You are a witch. But if you can start communicating with your mother and grandparents, if they can read, they can read, right child?" she looked at her to make sure, suppressing a smirk. "They might get to know you. Their eyes might figure out what their closed up ears won't hear." And the process of writing it all down might help this child heal her soul, even if her family stayed stubbornly closed off. Patience would be her family here at school, and beyond if those fools didn't figure things out.



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Cam was surprised by the woman's reaction. When she asked if her grandparents could read she nodded and remained silent. Letters? She supposed she could write, but she still didn't think it would matter much. Her grandparents would still consider her a spiteful child and her mother...well, there was no telling what she would think.



The other words of the nurse made her think. Outside of illness and death. Death wasn't exactly an attractive option, but maybe illness? Was there a way she could make herself sick enough to get rid of her magic? Maybe then she could write to her daddy and he would take her away from all of this. That thought sparked a bit of hope in her. She did her best to hide that though. "I suppose I could try that," she replied quietly, her hair beginning to dim in shade once more.



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"Good." Then how come the child looked resigned? "I want you to come see me once a week and talk to me. You can come on your own, or I'll call you out of class, take your pick. But you start sending letters home and tell them why you're angry. You let them get to know you. If you're afraid of them retaliating, then you write them to me. But you write them. Promise me." She looked at the girl's eyes. "As soon as you promise, you can be on your way. I want you to go back to your dorm and take a nap. Eat an extra big dinner tonight. Lots of fluids for the next few days too."





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She nodded, avoiding the woman's eyes as her mind whirled. If she could make herself sick enough she might lose her magic. It would take some serious research, which meant visiting the library.



"Yeah sure, promise," she said somewhat non-commitally.