⋆𝐃𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠⋆ - 𝐓.𝐌.𝐑

𝟎𝟒𝟎 - 𝐏𝐚𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬

⋆

𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝟭𝟮, 𝟭𝟵𝟰𝟱

Madame Hippocratea Goodacre stands before her in half-fastened travel robes flapping about over her perpetual nursemaid uniform, white apron stained so deeply with fighters' blood that no spell can vanish.

She's only just arrived in the dying hours of the dying Scottish winter sun, and Elizabeth was called out of lessons to welcome her and... debrief  her over the dire situation they're facing.

Two more.

Goodacre is certainly no longer the unflappable woman whose nose was too high up her own arse to notice first-year Myrtle Warren's pitiful looks and turn her away from volunteering. Now the matron is a flighty-eyed, shaky-handed, throbbing-veins-below-thin-skinned mess threatening to collapse before her like a bombed trench – and bury them all under, because Elizabeth is 16 and not meant to manage a fucking endemic all on her own.

She wasn't as perturbed by the death-touched woman as the professors accompanying them to the wing, though.

Jacques was like that on some days, they'd be on kitchen duty in St. Joan's and suddenly he would cease his metronomic dicing and depart for the Somme River, 1916.

Where the waters ran red as his friends ran low.

The current muggle term was "shell shock", though she doubted any of madame Goodacre's nightmares included bullets whistling past her face – curses maybe, and the damage they left in their wake for her whittled hands to heal.

But unlike Jacques, where phantom bullets could not reach him in the civilian world, the matron (and anyone who might survive this damned war) will forever be haunted by the colorful sparks and devious applications of magic in a magical realm.

"...wouldn't dare call you away if we had another option. We've exhausted all available resources-"

Elizabeth's clipped tone and clinical speech brushes past the flickering woman like a herd of Thestrals past an innocent child, showing no sign of affecting her or being adequately received at all. A hand is unceremoniously clapped upon her shoulder, urging her back slightly as a stroke-inducing shade of orange strides forward – that he dare touch her...

"I apologize, dear Hippocratea, you know how today's youth can be so despondent and grave – how were your travels? How does the fighting fare?"

This blubbering, twinkle-eyed bitch.

With the air of a pulsing, volatile beehive, the head healer of Hogwarts turns on her axis to address Dumbledore with surprising lucidity behind her eyes. "The war fares as wars do, Brian Wulfric, bloody and despicably violent. The girl would be stupid to not be grave, and outside of these walls she'd be dead."

Dumbledore sputters ridiculously for a good few minutes and Elizabeth basks in the purplish tinge of disillusionment on his cheeks, burying a grin at the sight of the other professors subtly nodding along with Goodacre's words. She straightens up as the woman lays her bloodshot, ticking eyes upon her – not fearful per se, but there's a ghostly reflection in the reddened sclerae that gives her an urge to shriek.

How much death has this woman seen, exactly?

"Repeat yourself, would you? What resources, precisely, were made available to you and the other interns-"

"I'm afraid I was the only one cleared for dealing with this, madame."

With no answer Goodacre's head turns again, the sound of creaking hinges would not be misplaced in the action, facing the faculty she curls her lip. "Is that right? A joint decision, was it? Because I sincerely doubt Amicus and Galatea – never mind Melania, if she was in – could stand for-"