I Need Somebody

There was a commotion outside her door. Heavy, quick footsteps scrambling (to the best of their ability) up the stairs. Mali had been tucked comfortably away on a beanbag chair, curled up with the latest trashy romance novel from her favorite author. She was lost somewhere on a Mediterranean beach with a shirtless man who had abs for days, an exotic accent and long, silky dark hair that probably made him look ruggish and handsome (and if any of this were real, his hair would've made Mali feel a little jealous too.) when the commotion dragged her out of her book and towards the door. What in the bloody heck?

Mali shot to her feet and over to the door. It could be Death Eaters. The knock was harsh, starling out a surprised yelp from her. She slapped a hand over her own mouth and took a step back from the door. It had to be Death Eaters. Because of her past experiences with the deplorable group her mind automatically ran to them anytime something was amiss. She was alone and pretty petrified of whatever was on the otherside of the door. Mali had to deal with the potential Death Eater attack on her own and she was terrible at dealing with things alone. That's why Theo was so fantastic, he was willing to deal with her things with her so she didn't have too. She could, though. She could do this. The witch retreated further into her apartment in search of something. Not her wand, she was rubbish at dueling but a baseball bat. Let's see them curse her when she bashed their face in first.

Back at the door she jerked it suddenly open before winding her back back and--- stopping mid swing. "Meg!?" It wasn't a greasy haired death eater on the other side but a bloodied mess that was all knees and elbows and blonde hair. "Bloody hell!" That was an understatement, obviously. She set the bat down by the door and moved to help the woman inside. Healer mode engaged pretty quickly and she guided her over to her own bed. "What happened? Is Theo alright?" Meg might've been bleeding in front of her, but Theo was her main concern. Her mind was racing with a million possiblities as she urged the blonde to sit down. She was quick but gentle, helping the blonde ease out of her half worn jacket. Blood soaked her clothes, a lot of blood. Too much of it, honestly.

"Let me see." Mali said, shooing Meg's hand away from the scarves piled against the side of her neck. The sight of the wound made her stomach twist uncomfortably. Meg was definitely her least favorite person but she didn't want to see anyone injured or bloodied up. "What did this?" Not who, because nothing human could've caused those wounds, right? They sort've looked like scratch marks on her face. Mali looked towards the window, the moon was visible in the sky but not full. It couldn't of been a werewolf. A firm hand on Meg's uninjured (or less injured?) shoulder pressed her to lay down before she left the woman's bedside. Mali disappeared into the bathroom to rummage through the medicine cabinet before returning with a single vial of blood replenishing potion. Their personal stock of the stuff was running low and that meant she'd have to work quickly to stop the bleeding. She stopped to grab her wand off of an end table along the way.

Mali sat on the edge of the bed with Meg, uncorking the vial. The scratches looked so much like the one's she'd seen on Lupin the morning after his wife died, but the wound on Meg's neck? She wiped the blood away to get a better look, offering her a sympathetic look as she worked before examining the wound "Is that.. Are those teeth marks?"

Her eyes were wide as her bat froze in mid air, mere feet from beating Meg's bloodied face in. Theo would never forgive her for that, no matter how much of an accident it was. "I thought you were a Death Eater." she explained. It sounded a little ridiculous when said out loud and she might've been embarrassed about how silly it was to attack a blood thirsty wizard with a baseball bat if she wasn't busy assessing the witch even as she stood there bleeding. Mali wrapped an arm around the woman's waist, allowing her to lean in for support. It didn't appear that her legs were injured but she could shoulder some of the burden of keeping the woman standing upright and getting her inside.

Meg may be injured, but she was still a prat. Mali rolled her eyes at the blonde's response. "That was so helpful, thank you." The words were drowning in sarcasm when they rolled off her tongue. Seeing the older woman in pain might've earned her some sympathy points and a little gentleness here and there, but it wasn't enough to dull her sharp tongue and quiet her sarcastic wit. She didn't have to call Theo a prat, the man adored his younger sister even when she seemed to treat him like rubbish. "At your house?" The Ashlands lived in such a rural area that the idea of someone stumbling randomly across their little country house was absurd. "Why?" They weren't especially wealthy, didn't seem to have made many enemies over the years. From what she gathered, Theo and his family kept their heads down and noses clean through the wars.

Mali flinched sympathetically when Meg flinched. She didn't like seeing other people in pain, even stubborn brats who seemed to like making things uncomfortable for her. "I'm sorry." she murmured, ignoring the discomfort she felt at apologizing to Meg. The prat. "It has to be done." All of it did. Meg wasn't going to remain sitting on the bed much longer at the rate she was losing blood. So much blood. Blood didn't do it's job on the outside of one's body, and her body wasn't likely to keep working so well if it didn't get more soon, so replacing it was imperative. The one vial wouldn't fix things but it would buy her time to stop the bleeding and run out and get more.

Mali returned to the witch's side quickly, not wanting to leave her alone for too long. Remus hadn't wanted to be alone when he was bleeding to death in the very same spot. "That language is unnecessary." she chided absently as she scrunched her face up in concentration, observing the wounds. When Meg dropped the bomb, Mali froze for a moment and then turned her attention back to the window. Had she made some mistake? Got her days turned around? "The moon's not full." she declared, her attention returning to the wound. "And the teeth marks are too flat to be a werewolf's." Healing werewolves, mostly Lupin, had allowed her to become very familiar with how werewolf wounds should look and that wasn't it.

Meg thought she was going to die, though. As a Healer or whatever she was now, it was her job to make sure that didn't happen and to comfort her. It was inevitable, bound to happen. Meg was going to get the 'Mali treatment'. She reached her hand, fingers brushing over the woman's forehead to sweep blonde strands away from her face while the hint of a smile played across her lips. "You're not going to die, Theo would never forgive me if you did." The witch picked up her wand again and went to work on the bite wound. She dragged the wooden tip over the bloodied flesh, reciting the sing song incantation to absolutely no effect.

"Hippogriffs." she cursed. "Drink this." Frustrated, Mali snatched the vial of potion off the bedside table and shoved it into her hand. She wasn't going to feed it to her, not as long as she was conscious. Besides, Mali needed to work. She huffed and left the woman's bedside, not for the medicine cabinet but for the shelf in the kitchen that held all of their potion ingredients. Could werewolf wounds really cause such damage in their human form? It wouldn't hurt, and they couldn't really afford to think about it for too long. 

Mali soon returned with a couple vials full of powdered silver and a small bowl of a brownish green paste. Meg was so going to owe her. The ingredients weren't necessarily rare, but powdered silver was expensive. "The silver's going to sting a bit, but the dittany'll make it feel nice and warm. I've made it into a paste with some murtlap, we're trying to minimize the scarring werewolves leave behind." The Healer worked as she spoke, packing the wound with a fine, shimmery powdered and covering it with the mentioned paste. "We haven't gotten to try that yet, I'm really interested to see if it works. Maybe at least help them fade a bit. No one wants to wear their suffering on their face like that." 

Now really wasn't the time to argue, not with far too much red leaking out of the woman making her go white but she made it very hard to resist. Mali had already set the bat aside but felt the need to defend her choice of weapon. "I'm not so good with dueling." she told the blonde as she moved to help her inside. "A Death Eater wouldn't be either, with a broken face." The surprise aspect of it was what made it work so well, in theory. No one would be able to curse her if they were getting their head bashed in. Almost bashing in said head of blonde was an unfortunate side effect.

"Well.." She started lightly, trying to keep the woman distracted. "Your poor attitude is intact, that's a good sign." She paused and considered what she said for a moment "Depending on how you look at it." A nagging worry settled into the pit of her stomach as Meg spoke about her attacker. "She knew Theo?" The only connection that Mali could draw between Remus and Theo was her. The two men wouldn't have known each other, probably wouldn't have even acknowledged each other on the street without her linking them together. "Did she say how she knew them?" Her mind had drifted away from Meg and towards the dark, run down factory where she and Remus had encountered a very angry werewolf who'd made some awful threats. None of those threats included Theo, though.

Not a werewolf werewolf, but one in human form. "What did she look like? What did she say about Theo?" Remus would be the one to consult on human werewolf bites, but Mali'd done a bit of reading on the subject during her quest for information on lycanthropy. "I don't think a human bite will turn you." That relieved a little bit of her own anxiety, at least. "Thank goodness. You're ill tempered enough without any help from the full moon." Mali gave Meg a little friendly nudge and a smug, closed lipped smile to let her know that she was (mostly) joking. And then she comforting to Meg, even earning herself the woman's attempt at a smile which only made her feel heavy with sympathy and soften her touch that much more. It didn't matter how they'd fought before, Meg was in pain and Mali absolutely hated to see people injured.

As much as she knew her shortcomings, Mali knew her strengths as well. Although she never managed to cut it as a Medi-Witch she was a damn good Healer. The environment was mostly quiet and controlled and she was absolutely at ease "No worries." she told Meg as she worked on knitting the wound, not even bothering to look up. "I'm the best Healer in the whole entire building." Not a big accomplishment considering she was the only Healer in the building but... semantics. It sounded good when she said it. The hand on her knee did cause her to look up in surprise. What was that? She was fairly certain Meg wouldn't willingly touch her if her life depended on it so what was that? Were they bonding? She couldn't bond the skin together, apparently, but they were bonding and it felt weird. Maybe good weird, maybe bad weird, it was unclear. "S'alright. You're not the first and likely won't be the last." It was sort've becoming her work space for her emergency healing. "It'll be good as new after a good scourgify."

Mali gathered the supplies and returned to Meg quickly. "Mm. Experiment 626." The witch set to work packing the wounds with silver. She picked her shoulder to start, it looked like the biggest and bloodiest wound. The blood was temporarily cleared away with a muttered "Tergeo." Blood was seeping out of the wound almost as fast as she cleared it but Mali's hands were quick, deftly packing in the silver. Meg asked the worst question. Mali knew the answer, of course. They could try to fade them with her experimental mixture but even if it worked her skin would always be marked. They wouldn't go away completely. Mali didn't hesitate with her response, answering as she reached for the bowl of murtlap and dittany. "I'm hoping that they won't be as prominent, but I'm not foolish enough to believe they'll go away completely." Telling someone that they're going to be horrifically scarred for the rest of their life made her insides twist up uncomfortably. "Just smile more." She slathered a healthy dose of the paste over the powdered silver. "You've got a nice smile, it lights up your face in such a way that no one will notice the scars." Satisfied with that wound, Mali moved on to the next and followed the same routine of clearing the blood and packing the wound. "You almost look pleasant when you smile."

"Are you sure?" Mali asked with a slight grin as Meg tried to use Theo as leverage to make sure she kept breathing. "His annoying little sister? Oh, you're right. He really is fond of you." She might as well save Meg, then. For Theo's sake and no other reason at all, not the fact that healing was as natural to her as breathing or that she might not want to see the blonde suffer. They weren't friends by any stretch of the imagination but they'd found some common ground last time, hadn't they? Similarities, similar passions.

Speaking of Theo, as worried as she was about Meg (or not worried, Healing was one aspect of her life she had confidence in) this bit of news left her feeling very unsettled. Mali shifted uncomfortably as she worked on healing the tall blonde witch. "No.." Her eyebrows were furrowed in both concentration and confusion. Laws? "I don't really understand what attacking you had to do with any of it." Memories of her visit to the werewolf lair with Remus fluttered back through her mind and Mali shook her head. "They're so angry, I don't think they know what they're doing anymore." The laws were oppressing people. Oppression never worked, it only inspired uprisings. "Or care." Theo hadn't been there, though.. So what did this have to do with that visit? Nothing, probably.

The heaviness of their conversation wouldn't have done well for either of them. Mali would only get distracted from her work if left to dwell on the fact that there was a rogue werewolf hurting people, who knew Theo's name. As much as she'd like to deny it, it was hard to think it wasn't the angry woman from before, the one Remus nearly killed. She was so mad and lost, her heart had a sympathetic beat or two for the woman, despite the mess she made of Meg. "You're really weird." she quipped back before nodding. "Mm.. Not a lot a lot, but Remus has had a transformation or two without wolfsbane." And a fight with a Death Eater who was lurking around her apartment. "Werewolves don't really like hospitals. I don't think I'd send you to the hospital either." More because they were so sensitive about werewolves lately and there was no hiding the nature of the wounds, given Meg would bleed out without the right treatment. She'd probably end up on a list or holed up 'til the next full moon was over. "I actually like most of my old co-workers, they'd never forgive me for sending you."

"Think of the cool stories you can tell." She tried to enthuse Meg over the wounds, but her heart wasn't in it. "You could say you got them while wrestling an orphan puffskein from the beak of a mad hippogriff. Or that you.. Hmm.. Fell off your broom into a devil's snare while practicing for The Holyhead Harpies, ending your career before it started." Mali shrugged one shoulder. "I'd believe you were a harpy. Dunno about the quidditch part, though." The witch chewed on her lower lip as she ran a finger over one of the newly healed wounds before moving on to work on another one that needed her attention. Meg tried to smile and it was sort of pitiful and Mali's heart squeezed sympathetically again. "S'allright." her voice was very gentle as she chanced a look to the woman before returning to the wound. "The skin'll stretch the more you do it, so I guess that means no more scowling for you. How ever will you survive?"

Don't give me that look." Mali chided gently as Meg did her best to look like a force to reckon with. Glaring lost it's effect when one was pale and weak. Normally Mali would fold under such a look but now it only made her heart pang uncomfortably in her chest. When the blonde was shaking her head Mali paused her work to lay a comforting hand on the least damaged part of the woman's shoulder, hoping to soothe whatever was floating through the woman's head. "Dunno what he sees in you." the Healer teased as she went back to her work. She'd already called the woman annoying, why not go for broke? "Maybe you remind him of his mum? You must take after her, right? I've seen your father, he's dark like Theo. My dads say I take after my mum too, must be a girl thing." Healing werewolf wounds didn't take an incantation, just the right ingredients so Mali was content to distract through mindless chatter. "But then Jon's a blonde, isn't he? Well there goes that theory." She shrugged her shoulders.

Meg had questions and Mali wasn't sure how exactly to answer them, how honest she should be. The truth could topple over the shaky truce they had managed but the poor witch had lied enough in her past to last a lifetime. "Theo's not done anything, really. I think this is my fault." She pointedly avoided looking directly at the blonde's face as she spoke, focusing more on the individual wounds. "Remus and I might of angered some of the werewolves. We just wanted to help, but some of them are too far gone, I think." Mali paused and bit on her lower lip before cautiously adding "I didn't mean for anything like this to happen and I'm sorry you're paying my consequence, but I'm not sorry that I tried to help them." At least she and Remus tried, didn't they? While most of society was turning their backs on the werewolves they refused to do the same. If Meg wanted to be mad at her then so be it, that would be her penance.

Another thing stopped her. Meg was so ignorant when it came to werewolves, it was surprising given her many werewolf friends. Gods, this was so uncomfortable. It wasn't really her place to explain other people's conditions but she started the conversation, didn't she? "Without the potion they go mad during the full moon." Seeing the insanity torn all across Remus' flesh was hard, thinking that a lot of them had been self inflicted when the poor man was a child. The brutality of it all sent very unpleasant shiver down her spine. "It makes them aggressive and beastly, but they lock themselves away for safety so they take their frustrations out on themselves. They tear themselves to shreds and even break their own bones trying to get out. But you.. You don't have to worry about that." Somehow the pair of them managed to bring things back around to humor. Had to laugh or they'd cry, right? Mali laid a hand sarcastically over her own heart with a theatrical gasp. "You wouldn't! Theo would never forgive you! He's fond of me too, you know!"

Mali frowned at Meg's resolve to her wounds. "Let me see." The witch took the blonde's chin gently in her hand and tilted her head this way and that, examining the skin with an expert eye before she gave the same prognosis from before. "It'll stretch, you've just got to keep at it. D'you want any tea? Something to eat?" Mali asked as she stood up and stepped backwards from the bed. "I'm going to get you a blanket so you can rest, alright? I'll write Theo and he can come collect you after you've rested."

This document describes how to use the dynamic debug (dyndbg) feature Dynamic debug

This document describes how to use the dynamic debug (dyndbg) feature Dynamic debug