Meeting a Muggle

Chapter 2

"Doctor Desiree Hanson report to Accident and Emergency," the paging system murmured through the speakers and Dez pulled herself out of the cot, groaning as every muscle in her body protested. She wasn't on call again, was she? She had to be, she was here, wasn't she? They were paging her, weren't they? Muttering dire threats on the hospital as a whole, and the sadistic bastards who made up the roster specifically, she stumbled out into the hallway and headed for the next round of the urban war against terror and pain. The undeclared war had hotted up for three weeks, but in the last few days it seemed to be slowing down and growing less active, less bloodthirsty and certainly less hectic.

Her shift was only short this time, fourteen hours of gruelling; 'on the feet' work then bliss of bliss a whole ninety six hours off! She had a hot date with her orthopaedically designed mattress and the world could go to hell for all she cared. She had worked for eight solid days and was ready to collapse. Thank God her surgical residency was almost over and she could be in her own rooms in less than three months!

Opening the door of her rather dusty and forlorn flat, she began emptying out her pockets even as she staggered toward the bedroom. She pulled out pens, bits of paper and a couple of lollypops she kept for kids, but when she came to an ornately carved, blood stained piece of rod, she stopped in surprise. As she studied it, a memory of red hair and blond hair came to mind, the two men covered in blood and stink. The redhead had been injured - badly injured - and his friend was going into concussive shock. They had been in the corridor behind the registrar's quarters, but how did they get there?

The stick was important, a magic wand, wasn't it, and the blond one had used his wand to make things happen. The redhead had teased him about it, and she had encouraged them as it kept them conscious until Mustapha could bring in the trauma team to deal with their injuries. Studying the carvings, Dez noticed the thing was hollow and something was stuck inside. Curiously, she dug around in the pile of rubbish in her top drawer and found a pair of very fine suturing forceps. Manipulating them with all the skill of her surgeon's training, she carefully extracted a fine, silvery sinew from the hollow. The severed end looked grey and dead but the lower portion retained a sheen and sparkle that was mesmeric. As she let the end go, it slid back inside the hollow with a faint hiss.

So it hadn't been a dream or a flight of her overtaxed imagination, she really had seen the two men, and they really had disappeared before her very eyes. The six people in white academic style robes had really used wands to clean the blood off the floors and ceiling, and had somehow wiped their memories of the incident out. Mustapha had no recall at all. She went to bed with the wand fragment under her pillow so it would still be there in the morning.

~~*~~

Someone was casting magic over him and he couldn't find his wand! Ron awoke with a roar of fury and thrashed out, trying to get away from the wielder. A band of iron attached to his wrist, holding him still until the words managed to get through to him.

"Ron, please settle down. No one is going to hurt you any more."

"Remus? Oh Merlin, I had the most...." As his eyes opened, Ron caught sight of his maimed hand, held at the wrist by his very worried professor, who was trying not to let him hurt himself any further. "Oh! It wasn't a dream, was it?" he whispered, biting his lip as Remus' greying head shook slowly and sympathetically. "My leg's gone too, isn't it?" Again the head moved but in the affirmative. "Harry and Hermione; are they alive? Did we win?"

"We won, at a price, a terrible price, but we did win." There was no elation in Remus' soft, rasping voice just weary acceptance as he let go of Ron's arm and settled back into his chair. "Harry is alive, yes, but he is totally blind. The healers don't know why or how the spell only affected his optics, but it did, and here is nothing magic can do to help. They even called in a Muggle expert but he was even less hopeful than the mediwizards who first looked at him. Harry himself is not that worried, or at least, that is the impression he gives, and his scent says the same. He is simply content to be alive."

"That's a good thing then, is it? Blind but alive," Ron asked harshly, his own trauma too hard and sudden to accept yet.

"Better than seeing and dead, I think," Remus snapped then apologised for his outburst as Ron collapsed back against his pillows.

"I guess so, and Hermione? Is she...?"

"Alive yes, conscious no. She has been completely unconscious for five days. They found her in a coma on the battlefield and brought her straight in. There were a few curse signatures on her which they immediately neutralised but nothing else just a complete lack of consciousness. Draco is going insane worrying about her and caring for Lysander. I--I have to go soon, they don't like to have me in here, but Dumbledore insisted."

Ron looked puzzled for a moment or two. "What do you mean? You were injured too, weren't you? I'm sure I saw you go down to a curse that was aimed at Snape."

"It wasn't much of a curse." Remus brushed off his concern without noticing. "Have to get back to Grimmauld Place and finish sorting out the Order's affairs for the Ministry. Now you are awake I can rest a little easier, just Hermione to wait for and then I will be happy. See you later, Ron."

"See you, Remus, take care of yourself," Ron said as the werewolf slipped out and a medi-witch came in, glancing over her shoulder and tutting in disapproval.

"I don't know why they let those things in here," she muttered then smiled brightly. "And how are you feeling today, Mr Weasley?"

"What do you mean 'those things'?" Ron asked, ignoring her question.

"Why, the animals, of course, fleas and..." She broke off as her patient turned a fiery red and sat up abruptly.

"Out! You rotten bitch! Remus saved everyone's lives on more occasions than I care to remember and you say something like that about him? Get out of my sight you stupid inane cow!"

She fled his fury and no one mentioned animals and werewolves again in his presence.

~~*~~

Harry and Hermione came to see him, Harry leaning on Ginny's arm, Hermione and Draco attached at the hip. The four of them hovered around his bed, each of them uncomfortable with the other for the first time in their lives. It was awkward and upsetting. The meeting did not last long before a nurse came and chased Hermione back to bed. Harry lingered a few moments longer but then he had to go for more tests and allowed Ginny to lead him away. And Ron was alone again, trapped in his bed without a wand, and no hope of getting away from the relentless kindness and good cheer of the St Mungo's staff. Everyone was trying to be nice to Ron, keep Ron happy, and make sure ickle Ronnikins didn't start brooding and ... whatever.

The bed was high and the ground seemed a long way off as he swung his leg and a half out of the side and put his remaining foot on the floor. Looking down, he covered his mouth as the purple and red lump below his knee mocked him with what was not there. There was no big freckled foot with knobbly toes and hard skin around the heels, nothing but fresh air, and a ghostly ache where there should not be. The floor was cold on his left foot but the right - wasn't there. He sat, staring down and trying to come to terms with the loss. He was a cripple. He was definitely no longer whole, a piece of him left somewhere out on the battlefield, never to be recovered. There would be no more running with Harry and Hermione, not more climbing and dancing, not that he was ever very good at dancing, he added to himself honestly. Still, the fact that he would never have the opportunity to get any better really hurt! An anonymous clown in a black robe and a very bad white mask had pretty much destroyed life as he knew it.

He thought that, perhaps, he should finish the job and just quietly top himself but then he would not be able to write a suicide note because the bastards had sliced his bloody fingers off too! So, he sat there and covered his mouth with the two fingers that were left on his right hand, something else that ached when it shouldn't. There was a white scar all the way around the middle of his thumb where they had reattached the top half. It worked fine, felt good and useful but the missing parts still hurt.

He thought briefly of his wand, sliced in half by the hex that had removed his fingers, best oak and dragon sinews, a heavy duty wand for the reliable, as Ollivander had told him when he chose it. Good for hard hitting spells, perfect for the Auror in training. And there was another problem, three years of Auror training up the spout, what use was a one legged one handed Auror? Although, they had put up with Alastor for years, hadn't they?

Alastor had actually come to see him a few days before, bringing some sage advice on how to cope in a two legged world. It had been an uncomfortable meeting, as all his meetings were these days, the old man basically telling him to get a wooden leg and get on with life. Although roughly delivered, the advice was good and well worth taking. Trouble was, again, you needed a wand and he didn't have one. So he was stuck right here in St Mungo's, flirting with the idea of suicide, until he could get out and get a wand, which he couldn't get until he had fixed his leg, which he couldn't do as he didn't have a wand. Gods! Life was so complicated!

There was a tentative knock on the door and Remus put his head around the edge, an uncertain smile on his face until Ron smiled and beckoned him in. The small man moved like a ghost to the side of the bed, his feet silent on the floor. He seemed to be slowly disappearing into the shadows over the past week and a half, as if he was also disappearing from their sight.

"How are you today?"

Ron snorted. "Doing the rat run thing," he said flippantly. "I need a wand to get out of here, and I need to get out of here to get a wand."

"Ah! I might be able to help you there." Remus smiled as he sat on the edge of the visitor's chair. "Will you let me cast on you? Thank you. I'm going to create a lower leg for you that will look just like the original but it is pure magic for just now. Once you get your own wand you can choose what sort of real artificial leg you want. Oh dear, that sounded a bit off, didn't it?" They both chuckled at the thin joke. "Have you apparated side by side? Very well, hold onto my arm for balance. Don't worry, I won't let you fall. I could carry you easily if I have to, I'm stronger than I look."

Ron had a vague memory of seeing Remus pick up and bodily hurl a Death Eater twenty feet without seeming to even try, so he relaxed and gripped the solid arm offered to him, trusting Remus to apparate them both safely. He didn't even think to ask the werewolf where they were going until the spell caught hold of him.

They arrived with a pop in Diagon Alley as close to Ollivander's front door as Remus could get them. As they entered the shop, Ollivander himself hurried forward and pulled a chair in close to the counter, ushering Ron into it as if he was Pureblood royalty. For the next hour, Ron was pampered and catered to, wands of every description brought out for his assessment. Remus took no part in the proceedings apart from passing boxes when asked. The wands Ron tried were fantastic; some very close to his original one, others almost directly opposite. Finally he picked up a simple oak wand with a unicorn tail core and knew he had found the wand. It was not like his old one and he puzzled about that, but it was definitely the right one. He turned to grin at Remus, who smiled back approvingly.

It was at that point Ron realised he didn't have any money and in fact he was still wearing his hospital pyjamas and dressing robe. Ollivander merely shrugged and told him it had been taken care of, and not to worry. Remus agreed and helped him up as Mr Ollivander handed him a wrist holster for his wand and helped strap it on, not an easy task when missing a couple of fingers. Finally, straightening to his full height, Ron thanked the wand maker and allowed Remus to help him out onto the street. The sun was shining and it looked like a really beautiful day, one of the nicest days Ron had ever seen and he said so, making Remus chuckle. "Thanks Remus, you have no idea..." he began but was waved away by his old teacher and good friend.

"I have every idea Ron, having been deprived of my wand before. I didn't agree with them keeping you from having a new wand, and I did not think the deprivation was helping in your healing."

"So you took matters into your own hands?" Ron was startled into asking.

"I'm afraid so, and I have to tell you that I am not going back with you. I've already said goodbye to Harry and Hermione, and now I am saying goodbye to you. I've settled all my affairs and I'm leaving the wizarding world to live in the Muggle world."

"Why? Remus, you'll never survive by yourself. What about transformations and such, who will take care of you?" Ron protested as the older man began to step away from him.

"I'll be fine, Ron. I have some money again and have bought a piece of property for a song. The Muggles think it is haunted and the wizards know the Dark Mark appeared over it last year, so I bought it for just a few thousand pounds. I've lived as a Muggle before, so it won't be too hard. Now, you had better get back to St Mungo's, this outing has taken longer than I thought and they are probably missing you right now. Take care of yourself."

The two men hugged tightly then Ron stepped back and Remus disappeared with a pop. Shaking his head, Ron waited a few minutes then apparated back to his room at St Mungo's, where he appeared in chaos.

"Where have you been?" the mediwitch wailed as soon as he appeared, four Aurors suddenly turning to stare at him with varying expressions.

"Out to buy a wand of course," Ron said as if it was an everyday occurrence. "Remus and I just popped out to Oll...."

"I told you that bloody animal had kidnapped him!"

"Oi, you, watch your mouth! Remus is not an animal; he is my friend and teacher!" Ron snarled at the woman in disgust. "No wonder he wants to leave our world if that sort of attitude is all he has to look forward to. Now get out! Don't bother coming back!"

The woman huffed indignantly but did exit, leaving the Aurors to grin at Ron as he limped over to the bed and sat down gingerly. He groaned miserably as his body protested with shooting pains all over.

"Overdid it, didn't you?" Alastor said with a wicked grin. "I told you it would take a bit of time. So, when are you coming back to work then?"

"I don't know Alastor? Have I even got a job anymore?"

"You are on sick leave for the next four months, then you can come back as a Detective Constable, but you won't be in the field any more. The Minister wants you to put that very fancy Hogwarts education of yours to good use and start co-ordinating information for the whole Aurory."

Ron sighed and nodded before pulling off his dressing robe and climbing into the bed. "Sounds fine but first, I'm going to nap!"