Nice Face - 22 Sept 1978 - Alecto

[Miya Catchlove]

Leaning back against the wall, Miya took a deep breath in. Tonight she was pulling a double, covering for a coworker who was out sick. So far it had been a calm night, other than the woman who kept screaming about Death Eaters. She’d been so intoxicated when she had arrived that Miya wasn’t even sure how she was standing. Between screams, they had learned that she’d been a victim of repeated cruciatus curse, and Miya felt for her. She’d never been hit with that spell before, but they were seeing more and more individuals coming into the hospital who’d been affected by it. Some days they had individuals who had woken up in places they’d never been before and came to the hospital with concerns that they couldn’t address. They had suspicions of course, but the imperius curse left no lasting spell damage, so they’d never be able to prove it.

Taking another deep breath, Miya pushed off the wall and nodded to a coworker as she went into the next room, this patient was still asleep. From what they could tell, this poor soul had taken a blasting curse to his stomach, and Miya honestly didn’t know if he would recover. His wife was by his bedside, holding his hand, and looked up as Miya entered. “I’m just here to check his bandages, it will be quick,” she said quietly, pulling down the blanket so she could check the wound. It still looked bad, the potion they’d given him hardly helping. She applied an ointment from the table sitting next to the bed before replacing the bandages, and giving the wife a nod as she left the room. Miya had loved working in spell damage when she first started here, but these days it felt like so many people came in with conditions that took forever to heal. Whatever the Death Eaters were doing, they were doing it well.

“Hey, I’m going to the loo. Can you check on the patient in 425?” she asked a coworker before she headed down the hall and pushed into the women’s bathroom. Her hair was tied up in a knot, which was giving her a headache, and she stared into the mirror as she contemplated never agreeing to do a double shift again. Healing had always been her passion, but this? These long nights watching people die because of the extent of their injuries? Not only that but the permanent damage ward had more people in it than the hospital had ever recorded. Some were tortured to insanity, some missing all memories of who they were. Sighing, she pulled her hair from the bun and fluffed it out, staring at herself in the mirror. She looked as tired as she felt and would need to get either coffee or waking potion in her soon.

[Alecto Carrow]

She hadn't been given this much free rein in some time. The order to draw attention to herself, to distract the civilians so that others could slip through the cracks - and it was perfect. She would have been wasted, if treated like one of the others. The new one, the young one, Bronwyn...beautiful girl, trusting face, she would go unnoticed where they needed her to go. The hospital was a beast of chaos itself, the Healers and orderlies outmatched by the screams and whimpers and the fear that pressed down from the ceilings. But bravely, naively, to exhaustion - they carried on. Pushing the boulder up the hill. Running after it as it slipped and tumbled down, down, down. Grips weakened, arms about to break, knees shaking, braced and pushing it up, up, up...

The witch had been her in tonight.

The sloppy, sloppy drunk, one of many Alecto had come to observe at the Wyvern in preparation. Predictable. Easily tailed. Easily tempted.

The curse, easily summoned. Again. Again...

Someone had had to study this, surely, before the label of Unforgivable was slapped on. Academically, far more so than Alecto had the patience for, to know the numbers. How much one could take before they were doomed for a life on the fourth floor.

There were worse things.

And the witch, the witch - she'd been the distraction, Alecto had delegated, to allow Bronwyn and herself an opportunity to slip in. She'd done her part splendidly, truly, drawing such a crowd of concern! It was almost a shame to leave her, but she was swept away...and Alecto felt it was high time to check in. She'd catch her breath, find her, and carry on. She'd worked her way up from the ground floor, never still. Shelves of artefacts held in evidence, left in disarray, the attendant very well spooked at the sight of her, crying out for a guard that couldn't come. Lurid robes nicked, worn with dignity as she followed around the Healers on first. They got wise, perhaps she shouldn't have started asking questions, but she was only trying to learn; the patient would have less fear, certainly, of the bats that had bitten him, now that she'd helped him understand them better. Robes ditched, hair let down, and on second, a fleet of venomous spiders scuttled down the hall at her feet - on third, she was blasting the door to a potion store-room at a run - on fourth, she ducked into the loo at a sprint. Alecto laughed as she braced herself against the door inside a locked stall, no luck at catching her breath, and waited for the ruckus to reach her.

If she was caught, she wouldn't be caught for long.

They were Healers. The guards were just as worried as them about keeping guests and patients safe. Here, she could blend for a moment, if she needed. She'd wandered from the permanent resident's ward, she'd gotten lost, she wasn't herself, she didn't know, she didn't know! Breaths slowing, Alecto haphazardly adjusted her appearance yet again - hair tied up at the base of her neck, clothes charmed to mimic the residents. The door opened, shut. Steady steps. Stopped. A sigh.

She peeked through the crack, changed her clothes once more. The witch was in Healer's robes, she'd likely spot her as a fake. But a visitor, a worried visitor - she blinked fiercely to wet her eyes, breath halting as if stifling tears, and exited the stall. 

She pressed her lips together and washed her hands, shoulder-to-shoulder with the witch as the younger woman fussed with her hair. She had a great head of hair, full and alive, and Alecto could hardly keep up the downtrodden act. "Could you - I'm sorry, could you take me to my friend?" Alecto asked hesitantly, ear to the rising noise outside. "She was admitted tonight, they wrote that she'd been cursed. With one of the you-know-what's."

[Miya Catchlove]

While it had been a quiet night, it seemed that would be changing as she heard whispers from the guards in the hospital of chaos being let loose on other floors. One of them was talking quickly about venomous spiders, and Miya wondered for a moment if Gracie was working. Spiders were her line of work, and she would be devastated if the spiders were killed just because they escaped. But Miya wasn’t going to go and check out loose spiders, not now and not ever. She thought she heard whispers of scattered artifacts and a particularly annoying new healer on the first floor, and while she was usually one for the latest hospital gossip, today was just too much. Too many people coming into her care who had every chance of ending up in the permanent ward. The poor witch they’d brought in tonight was a prime example, of someone who was vulnerable being tortured for whatever witch or wizard got their rocks off.

She was still fussing with her hair as a witch emerged from one of the stalls, and Miya only spared her a quick glance before she looked back to the mirror. The witch looked upset, which made sense given the floor she was on. It was never fun visiting a patient in spell damage, especially if they were in the permanent ward. It wasn’t until the other woman spoke to her that Miya looked back at her. She looked perhaps like she’d been crying, or that she had allergies, but she was asking about the patient who had just been admitted. In normal circumstances, they wouldn’t allow visitors to patients until they had their initial examination, but with the chaos in the halls that Miya could hear from outside the door, she doubted anyone had gotten to the women yet.

The witch looked familiar, but not enough so that Miya could place her. Probably someone who had overlapped with her at Hogwarts, but wasn’t close enough to any of her friends for Miya to know her name. “She hasn’t been examined yet,” she said, looking back to the mirror, still frustrated with her hair. Up or down, it was annoying her either way. “But given the state she’s in, she could probably use some company. I can take you to her, I’m on my way there anyway.” Stepping back from the counter, she looked at the witch expectantly before she went out the door into the hall, where it was far more chaotic than it had been when she’d gone to the loo. Guards were looking for someone, which could mean someone got out of the permanent resident ward. She ignored them as she walked down the hall, checking only once to see if the witch was following her before she entered the room in which her patient was waiting. They had sedated her and also restrained her to the bed as she’d been fighting them when she had come in. “She’ll be out for a little, but you can talk to her.”

[Alecto Carrow]

This was the tricky part, wasn’t it? Chaos was easy to wrangle, one simply had to disrupt the norm, and in a space like this with too many rules, anything could trip the civilians up - but sustaining a farce, one-on-one? With someone who had graduated from Healer training? The witch wasn’t a fool, unless the hospital was as desperate for new blood as the Law Enforcement office was. And so Alecto tried, tried, to play the right part. To keep her eyes misty and soft, her voice wavering, her movements uncertain - while tensed and ready, on the balls of her feet, to spring in a moment. It was a different kind of fun, another story she looked forward to acting out for Bellatrix and her brother in a far more exaggerated fashion than what was in reality. Bella could play the pretty Healer, voice all business even as she kept returning to her wild hair…

The Healer looked her way at her words, dark eyes looking her over briefly. Alecto held her breath in the quiet that beat until she spoke, and could have beamed in success at passing the witch’s assessment. It was a strike of good luck, indeed, that this had been the Healer to enter - too young and trusting to ask many questions, and the cursed witch was on her schedule. "Thank you," she breathed in relief, releasing some of her energy in a broad, grateful smile. Her eyes flickered over the other’s face in the moment’s pause, the witch was still fussing in indecision with her hair, hands tangled in the mass of curls…she pulled her attention back to her eyes, smile turning. "Wear it down."

She was quick onto the Healer’s little heels as they moved from the loo, the newly transfigured cloak billowing out behind her frame - pale blue and soft, too soft, flowing like something out of Narcissa’s closet. Perfect for…Melantha, Mel - the friend, the roommate, the love? She followed the Healer’s lead and paid no mind to the guards stomping through the halls, subtle as minotaurs, although her face turned to the windows of rooms as they passed them by. She would lie low in the room until the guards moved on, finish off the unlucky witch from the pub, get moving again… Alecto slipped into the patient’s room, furiously fighting to keep herself contained as she perched on the edge of the bed.

The witch was restrained and had been put under.

Had she ever seen one of her victims like this? In the earliest stages of recovery? Certainly not in the hospital, it was too risky, unthinkable. The thrill and curiosity in her gut edged her forward, and she wondered if the terror in the witch’s eyes when she woke to see her could be written off as a reaction to what she had endured…

With the Healer’s blessing, she began to whisper. "Aggie, it’s me, it’s Mel. They’ve got you all tied up, Aggie - what happened to you?" She reached out to smooth the woman’s sweaty, lank strays from her forehead, combing through to the end with her fingers. "But you’ll be alright, you will, and we’ll be home soon. She’s going to take care of you, she’s right here with us - and she’s helped people like you before?" She looked over her shoulder to the witch, brows raised. "Healer…?"