Malignant ••• George Weasley

Chapter 15 - Mum

After she had walked out on George, Juna had gone back to the MIU. She made a beeline for the room where Bethany was being kept and had tortured her with magic, her hands and her words until the despicable witch fell unconscious.
She had to take her frustrations out on someone, it may not have been entirely moral... but it's what happened - much to Anchor's delight.

"There's the Cove we know and tolerate." His smug face looked so punchable.

"Fuck off." Juna mumbled as she moved to return to her flat for the evening.

Before she could get outside the building to apparate home, a deadpan voice came from behind her.
"Cove."
It was her father.

"What? I'm having a shit day, Mace. I'm not in the mood for your bullshit."

"First of all - watch your tongue. And don't even get me started on your little disappearing act today after that dark witch got under your skin, Anchor told me." He snarled.

"Well Anchor can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned. He knows nothing of my life. You and him can keep your noses out of my business."

Juna could visibly see Mace bristling at being spoken to this way. But she didn't care. She wasn't allowed to call him 'dad', or even suggest they had any connection other than co-workers. So she would treat him exactly how she would treat someone like Anchor.

"I'm not here to talk about that." He said after taking a breath to control his displeasure.

"Get on with it then." She crossed her arms and looked at him lazily.

"Roxy has been unwell of late. She's bed bound as we speak."

That caught Juna's attention and make her heart ache for the briefest of seconds before it plunged back into numbness.
"And?"

"Thought you may care. I seem to have been mistaken."
He almost sounded pleased that she didn't appear to care at all.

"Ok great. I've got places to be." She said curtly before disapparating in front of him without so much as a nod.

As the squeezing and suffocating sensation took over, she landed in the living room of her flat where her knees gave way beneath her as if she could no longer hold her own weight, throwing her to the floor. She stayed there on her knees for a while feeling an echoing emptiness.
George was nothing to her, Bethany was nothing but an evil witch, and most of all - Juna had no one to call family.

••••

A week passed by with no contact with George and with many drunken, numb nights alone. She couldn't even bring herself to go out and find a guy or girl to bring home and distract herself with.
Juna did nothing but go to work, train, question a rapidly unraveling and shrinking Bethany, and try to hunt down witches and wizards who seemed to have ties to Perseus.

She did manage to drag herself to her mother's house to visit her though.
True to Mace's word - Roxy was very ill and hadn't gotten out of bed in over a week. The second Juna walked into the bedroom where she lay, a wall of bad smells hit her like a wave. Clearly nobody had been in here to take care of the frail woman.
Juna cursed the MIU for not caring about one of their own, it was abhorrent that Mace knew what a state she was in and yet made no attempt to help.

Careful not to wake Roxy, she tiptoed into the rank room pulling out her wand. Silently, Juna muttered spells to clean up any messes her mother was forced to sit in, also charming the bedsheets to become fresh. Immediately after this, the smell dissipated dramatically.
Once the room was back in some kind of order, she sat lightly on the edge of her mother's bed. She gazed at the woman laying helpless in front of her. Roxy's eyes had deep, dark bags beneath them, her cheekbones were more prominent than ever and her skin was clammy and cold.
Juna picked up a bony hand and held it in her own. When had her mother become so bony and little?