The Potion Princess

The Twins

She stumbles into the middle of the twin's new flat, catching them both in the middle of what might have been a heated argument.  Audra just stands there, staring blankly at her surroundings, thinking that the twins really were better at housekeeping than they had let on.  There hadn't been a speck of dirt anywhere before she had tumbled out of the fireplace.

"Audra?"  Fred had started to smile when he saw who their intruder was, but now it slips off his face and is replaced by a worried frown.  "What's wrong?  What happened?"

Audra stares at the two of them, who she's been able to turn to with every worry and problem for as long as they've bene friends, and realizes that she has no way to answer that question.  "Vance is dead."  The words fall onto the carpet between them, right in the middle of the dirt and blood that was dripping around her shoes.  There is an awful mixture of questions and sympathy forming on their faces, and she wants it gone, because she doesn't deserve that.  "And I killed him."

The rest of the story comes out after that, when they've gotten her to sit on the couch and finally make her start talking.  She's not able to stop once she starts, about being unable to stop it, about Harry showing up with all of them, about the spell that hit Ron and Ginny's ankle, about Ginny throwing herself in front of Luna to save her and how Audra had just reacted, and then Vance had just been buried underneath everything, and then, and then, and then.

It must not have set in until then, when she has time to sit and be safe and gets to think about what she's done, because it's only now that she starts to freak out.  She can't breathe, and she's swamped in the same wave of panic that she's become so used to.  Clary calls these panic attacks, but Audra just thinks of them as minor annoyances, so she digs her nails into her wrists and scratches just so she has something concrete to focus on, even if it is pain.  But her lungs don't seem to actually want to work and there is something wet and sticky underneath her nails.  Fred is trying to talk to her, to get her to focus on him, but his voice disappears into the wave of white noise roaring in her ears.

"Here."  George appears in front of her, shoving a steaming goblet full of something right beneath her nose.  It smells strongly of cinnamon, and it makes her take in her first real breath since she got here. "It's a calming drought."  His face is pinched up in worry, the same way it has been since she got to the part about the spell hitting Ron, and that makes her take the goblet from him.  The warmth of it soaks into her fingers, cutting through the chill.  "You need it."

Fred loosens his grip on her, but Audra still doesn't do anything, just stares at George.  It's George that finally takes the potion back and lifts it up to her mouth, quirking up one eyebrow.  "Trust me, okay?"  The words break through her stupor and she takes it back from him, taking in great gulps.  "You'll feel better soon."

She doesn't feel better, exactly, but she does feel a bit less bothered by tonight's events, like they're being separated from her by an invisible screen.  Like she knows about them, but they're all a little blurry.

"Come on."  Fred tugs on her hand and she trails after him to the bathroom, where he lifts her up on the counter and starts to wash the dried blood away from her face with a warm wash cloth.  Audra doesn't talk, just lets the combined effects of his ministrations and George's calming drought lull in her into a forced state of clam. 

Fred goes to put his own patented bruise remover paste on her cheek, but she stops him grabbing his arm by the wrist and forcing his hand away.  "No."  She shakes her head forcefully, and he relents, probably afraid of putting her into another panic.  "I'm healing the muggle way."