Mitigate [S. Black]

sixteen | vulnera sanentur

SIRIUS HAD NOT KNOWN TRUE FEAR UNTIL HE WATCHED Alessia hit the floor in that Manor, her torso a bloody mess and her brown eyes fluttering shut. He was terrified for her, and he couldn't even think straight because of it. By some miracle his mind had decided to go back to Hogwarts, the only place he could think to bring her, but Madam Pomfrey hadn't been able to stop her bleeding.

"What do you mean you can't stop the bleeding?!" Sirius exclaimed, his eyes wild with both anger and panic at the same time.

"Now, Sirius, calm down," Poppy admonished him. "You know Alessia wouldn't want you to—"

"Don't you bloody tell me what to do!" Sirius shouted at her. "Where the hell is Dumbledore? The one time we actually need the old brute to do something other than sit behind his desk and give orders, and he's nowhere to be found—"

"Sirius!" Remus gasped at the blatant disrespect his friend was displaying.

"And how about instead of standing here trying to tell me to be calm, you get the hell over there and figure out how to help her!" Sirius continued yelling at Pomfrey.

"I am trying to tell you that whatever spell she was hit with is counteracting my healing attempts!" Pomfrey told him in exasperation. "I'm sorry, Mr. Black, I don't know if I'll be able to save her—"

"She can't die!" Something inside of him snapped just at the thought of Alessia not surviving. "She can't! She's... she's supposed to save all of us, she's supposed to end the war, she can't— she can't—"

"Sirius."

"Shut up! Shut the bloody hell up!" He shouted, turning on Pomfrey once more. "You're supposed to be one of the best healers alive, and you're trying to tell me you can't save her? If she dies because of your incompetence, I swear I'll—"

"Sirius, that is enough!" Remus exclaimed, horrified at his friend's behavior.

Pomfrey waved Remus's words off with a calm expression. "It's alright, Remus. I understand why Sirius is so out of sorts," she said matter-of-factly. "It's always hard when the person you're in love with is hurt. It's even harder when you don't know how to help them."

This caused the Black to fall quiet for the first time since he'd arrived the Hogwarts, sprinting through the halls with a bloody Alessia held against his chest. He'd known he was in love with her by then, of course, but it was different hearing it from someone else, different knowing that other people had noticed it as well. Especially considering this was the first time Madam Pomfrey had even seen them together.

The doors to the hospital wing flung open suddenly, gaining their attention then. "Where is she?" Severus asked as he stepped inside, but he saw Alessia lying on one of the cots and turned to head over to her without waiting for an answer.

"What do you think you're doing?" Remus demanded, stepping in his way before he could get any further.

"I'm going to heal her."

"How? The spell she was hit with is counteracting against—"

"I know how to heal her because I'm the one who created the spell Bellatrix used," Severus sneered impatiently. "Now—" Sirius threw himself at him as soon as the words left his mouth, slamming him against the wall with an anger Severus had never seen in his eyes before. It sparked just the slightest bit of fear inside of him, but he kept his cool and spoke up before Sirius could spit out whatever insults he was planning on using. "You're wasting valuable time, Black. I should also remind you that I had no clue Bellatrix would use my spell on Alessia. Now, are you going to let me save her, or not?"