me, him, and the moon ☾ l.s.

two - responsibilities

"Harry! We need you in here right now!" Niall shouted from a different room, his voice muffled slightly through the wall. The Irish boy's tone was laced with desperation, and Harry instantly picked up the speed of his work. His fingers fumbled with the bandage and he cursed quietly under his breath.

"Hold on, I'm just finishing up," Harry called back. He bit his lip in concentration, steadying his trembling fingers as best he could as he finished bandaging the deep gash on the soldier's upper arm.

"Now, Harry! I'm serious!"

"Okay, I'm coming!" He turned back to the soldier, who smiled gratefully at him. "You should be all set. Check with a nurse in the front and she'll give you more instructions --"

"Harry!"

"-- on how to care for the wound properly," Harry explained quickly. He gave the soldier's shoulder one more encouraging squeeze before turning and running into the next room to find Niall. He could already hear one of the nurses giving Niall some kind of instructions, the conversation bordering on an argument.

"No, no!" Niall was saying. "He won't make it, not even with a transfusion. He needs Harry."

When Harry's gaze fell on the unconscious, bloodied man, his breath caught in his throat, and he rushed to the wounded soldier's side. "What happened?" he exclaimed, already starting to assess the damage. He scanned the man's chest, his eyes widening at the bleeding claw marks ripping across the bruised skin. Even after working in the infirmary since he was just twelve years old, Harry still shuddered at the horrifying sight.

"Scouts," Niall explained shortly, both of his hands pressing down on a particularly deep wound on the man's side in an attempt to slow the bleeding. "A whole group of them along the Northern border. We haven't seen any action there for months, so they weren't expecting it."

"Are there any more?" Harry demanded, already starting to carefully remove the soldier's tattered shirt. He needed to know how much energy he could expend on just one patient.

Niall shook his head. "Just scratches and bruises on the rest of the squad. Apparently this one got caught outside the gate, and they weren't able to drag him back inside until after the action was over."

The nurse grasped Harry's arm firmly to get his attention. "He needs you," she said simply, echoing Niall's earlier statement. And Harry knew exactly what she meant.

Harry nodded immediately. "He's going to be fine," he promised. "Niall and I will take care of him." He raised his eyes to meet Niall's panicked ones, ordering, "Get him into the back room."

The nurse squeezed Harry's arm once again, offering some awkward encouragement. "I'll make sure no one comes in. You've done this a million times, Harry. Don't doubt yourself."

"I won't," he promised. He exhaled shakily, then followed Niall toward the back of the infirmary.

The Irish boy had already stripped the rest of the patient's shirt away, one of his hands still pressing securely on the particularly severe wound. Harry hurried across the room for a jug of water, pouring it into a bucket for easier access. His eyes fluttered closed as he dipped his hands into the bucket, letting the energy from the water spread through his entire body.

A few moments later, he removed his hands from the bucket, the water settling around his fingers in a blue-ish glow. Then he went to work, his hands guiding the water expertly across the man's wounds. He nodded to Niall, indicating that the Irish boy could remove his hand, then immediately started stitching the torn flesh back together. Niall went behind him as he worked, cleaning patches of dried blood from the unconscious soldier's newly-healed skin.