Mistakes Can Be Fixed

Except for this bloody pile of rubble. That definitely wasn't here before.

The ceiling had caved in the day before yesterday, the explosive force of the bombarda spell fractured beams and shattered stone. The resultant avalanche of detris had crushed the youth, pinning his unconscious form to the floor. The last thing he heard was muffled voices, those belonging to Matthew Campbell and Nabi Park, they were speaking to his brother when something went wrong. He did not know what, but a sharp incantation Bombarda rocked the corridor. He had no idea what precipitated the arcane melee, nor did he have the time to react.

The beams groaned and ultimately cracked. The stone rumbled and slid from the broken rafters. Aamon was standing, rather sitting in the wrong place at the worst possible time, had taken the brunt of it, not emotionally not metaphorically, literally. The wall had given way like collapsing flan, burying him under centuries of mortar and stone.

He was hit hard in the head. His vision, an array of stars and then black. His arm, crushed under a metric ton of stone. Ribs fractured, legs twisted. He was not conscious, that would be his only boon. A moment of terror and pain that ended abruptly. His suffering was brief, but he malingered under the rubble.

Nabi and Matthew never looked for him. Giddeon carried on with his day, satisfied by the prospect of one less rival. Classes would carry on the next day without him. As if he was not even supposed to be there, less his name being rattled off a roster. He did not know why Giddeon was suddenly forced to defend himself, nor was he sure Giddeon was even alive. While he had nothing but time, the span passed in the blink of an eye. There was no thought between, but a brief gap of nothing, not even darkness.

He would be found eventually, that was by design. A body had to be recovered, there needed to be closure. Something for his parents to pretend to mourn. He was probably dead already, but Giddeon could not risk checking or trying to finish the job. It was, as far as anyone would know, a tragic accident. A lone first year crushed beneath the rubble of a centuries old building. A building in obvious, desperate need of improved infrastructure. As the hours turned into more than a day, Giddeon would grow confident in his scheme. In his brothers unfortunate demise.

Only, Aamon was not dead. Just nearly.

Finnegan Connor, of all people, would find the collapsed wall, the shattered ceiling and the passageway littered with stony refuse and had the presence of mind to recognize that had not always been like this. A truth, mere days before he would have observed a non-descript passage. Nothing particularly interesting or concerning for that matter, just a space that was 'out of the way' as many spaces in the cool, dark, quiet places in the castle were. But that alone was not enough to compel him to look closer. If anything, the rubble served as a deterrent. A clear indication that the path ahead might not be safe. Although little was safe in Hogwarts, something the Gryffindor keenly knew.

It was the wand and the hand that nearly held it. Aspen wood and kelpie hair, a cheap wand hardly befitting an Athanatos. The hand was unmoving, the wand fixed in hand, but utterly useless. The lion probably did not expect to find the young Athanatos buried. Finnegan was a walking contradiction, he seemed to detest Aamon and his family with the exception of Giddy. Aamon had chalked it up to one of those “my family cursed your family in the 1400s” sort of things at first. Maybe they accidentally burned his great-grandfather’s vineyard. Or stole his ancestral kneazle. He thought the Connor family was a muggle name, but what did he really know? A relationship too unconventional and perhaps too tangled for the first year to understand.

But Aamon was afraid of Finnegan. He had hurt Aamon before and it was not the pain that got to him, but it was the vitriol that seemed to leak through in his rhetoric. Finn hated him, not disliked or distrusted, but truly hated him. Hated him in a way even his most disturbed kin didn't. He did not understand why, and he did not want to. He could understand madness, or a rivalry. He could understand impulse and ambition, but he could not understand Finnegan Connor.

Finnegan would dig, his wand-work first-class, to find what remained of Aamon Athanatos. He looked more like a cautionary tale than a person. The blood trickling down his temple had long-ago dried. His robes, once fashionably crumpled, now looked like something dredged from the bottom of the lake. One shoe had miraculously stayed on. The other was nowhere in sight—possibly halfway to Hogsmeade by now. His leg was bent the wrong way, perhaps that shoe was not a good-luck charm after all.

He was not moving.

He might not be breathing. "...Leviosa!" A beam lifted from a pulverized rib, and there he would see it, unburdened by the weight of the beam a slight, ragged rise and fall of his chest. A thin, reedy breath stirred at his lips—proof of life, barely. But the pre-teen did not answer to his name. "Wingardium— Aamon?"

But it wasn’t the blood that was most unsettling. Nor the bones that looked out of place, nor the bruises blooming down his throat and chest like fingerprints. It was the look on Aamon's face. Aamon's eyes were open, fixed on nothing. Pupils pinpoint. His flesh, ashen-grey. That deathly pallor. He seemed to resemble his brother more by the day.

Status: Unconscious. Contusions, lacerations and multiple comminuted and fixed fractures. Dehydration, anemia secondary to blood loss and concussion.

F I N N E G A NxC O N N O R
omnes magni homines primum fuerunt pueri

gryffindor, third-year
─────────✫

It was perhaps a small mercy that Aamon Athanatos was unconscious and unaware of who now hovered near him, but in a world as brutal as the one they inhabited, sometimes small mercies made all the difference. Indeed, it was a small mercy that Aamon would remain blissfully ignorant of the dark, fleeting thought that crossed Finnegan's mind in that moment, like a passing cloud blocking out the sun. What if I just leave? One less Athanatos wandering about this school would be a good thing, would it not? No one would ever know. It would be easy to cover up the body again and let nature run its course. How long would it be before they'd find him? How long before the smell of decay would finally draw someone's notice? Days? Weeks? The idea made his insides twist into knots, a sick, squirming feeling like he'd swallowed something rotten. A fist of shame, guilt, and disgust crushed that line of thinking. How could he even think something so horrible? He did not like Aamon, that much was true, the boy was the scion of a terrible family and skittish and difficult besides, but that did not mean he deserved to die in the dark. Someone wants him dead though, Finnegan thought with sudden clarity. The near loss of a hand? The dolls' attempts to drag Aamon into the forest? Now this? The pattern was obvious. The pale, almost gray complexity of Aamon's skin was alarming, but the open-eyed stare was even more terrifying. Finnegan's breath hitched in his throat, sharp and painful. He'd seen enough blood and broken bones for a lifetime, but he had never seen a dead body before, or one so close to passing. There was a smell to the approach of death, a staleness in the air that made his skin crawl. But it was the look of Aamon's mangled body that was more frightening still. He looked almost like a doll, his limbs bent at strange angles, yet they were too rigid, too plastic and stiff, like he was just an empty husk; little more than a hollow container from which the good-looking boy that had been Aamon Athanatos had been sapped. Finnegan gasped when he saw the faintest hint of breathing, an almost imperceptible rise and fall of the chest. He's still alive, thank god he's still alive. The powers that be had picked a curious guardian angel for the curious Athanatos scion, but not an incapable one. Indeed, though Aamon would likely never know it, he could hardly have wished for someone better equipped to rescue him. Tucked away in Finnegan's innermost pocket sat a small, expensive phial. Another brick in the wall, another trick up his sleeve for when all else had failed. The thick, silvery substance promised an escape from death, but at a terrible price. Finnegan lowered his wand and dropped to his knees by Aamon's side. About a third of the Slytherin was still covered, but enough had been cleared to free his chest and face, and some of his lanky legs. “H-hold on,” Finnegan stammered. His wand clattered to the floor while his fingers worked to undo Aamon's tie, and the top buttons on the shirt of his school uniform which had been constraining his breathing. Then he pressed his ear to Aamon's chest and listened for a pulse, however faint, before he picked up his wand again. How lucky was Aamon that Finnegan had just spent several months in St. Mungo's where he had been kept for observation, though it hadn't been long before he had been the one doing the observing. He'd witnessed patients being brought day after day, he'd seen the nurses at work and even picked up a particularly tricky spell after much practice. Freed from deadly distractions like Quidditch and Gideon, Finnegan had proven a far more capable student than his report card had previously indicated. With little else to do but to talk with nurses and do the assignments sent to him from Hogwarts, his progress had been notable. That didn't make this easy though. The spell on his mind, one of only a handful healing spells he knew, required focus, precision and a very clear pronunciation. Finnegan picked up his wand again, he had to clench the wooden handle to steady his trembling hand. Even if he succeeded, this spell would not fix all the obvious broken things in Aamon's body, but perhaps it could buy some time and stave off death a little longer. If it failed, then the silvery phial would be his last recourse, and what a terrible choice that would be to make. To let Aamon pass or to keep him alive by vile means, without the broken boy ever having any say in the decision. It could not come to that, he could not let that happen. He would not. A small bit of chestnut wood rested against Aamon's sternum, and Finnegan took a deep, steadying breath. Three times he would have to incant the spell, three times without fail, no more and no less. “Vulnera Sanentur...” The air shifted, balled together into something warm that expanded slowly outward, pressing against Aamon, seeking entry. “Vulnera Sanentur...” The sing-song quality of the spell was almost ethereal in the depths of the dungeons. The faintest flicker of light in a pit of darkness. “Vulnera Sanentur...” Upon the third and final incantation the spell would take effect and begin spreading through Aamon's broken body. Fractured bones would remain fractured. Broken ones would not mend themselves, but the deep wounds, the internal bleeding and the deep cuts invisible to the naked eye, would begin to heal. Reducio Optional: if you want to you can do some kind of roll for effectiveness, like a d4 (25% no effect, 25% little effect, 25% normal effect, 25% excellent effect). Up to you. Finnegan shrugged off his robes next and forced the fabric into a bundle which he propped under Aamon's shoulders, aiming to tilt the boy's head back slightly to ease his breathing. Once that was done he touched Aamon's forehead and cheeks with the back of his hand, comparing their temperatures. Finnegan wondered again how long Aamon had been here and thought of all the things that still needed to be fixed before he could even begin to consider finding some way to move Aamon. I need help, Finnegan thought uselessly. I can't fix this alone. He needs the nurse or a Professor. The trouble was getting a message to those. There weren't any portraits here who could carry the message for him, and sending a spray of red sparks down the corridor would do nothing to get anyone's attention. They were too deep into the bowels of the dungeons to expect anyone coming their way. But the thought of leaving Aamon behind was unbearable. What if he woke up all alone in the dark? All alone and in horrific pain with no ability to help himself or even know that help was on the way. Finnegan could scarcely imagine a more terrible fate. “Shit...” Finnegan cursed under his breath, he couldn't leave, but what else could he do? Sitting crouched at Aamon's side was not doing the boy any good either. It wasn't until he checked his pockets for something, anything that might help that a solution presented itself. @Avery Phineas Finch had made a rather unforgettable first impression upon Finnegan when, some time ago at lunchtime, the caretaker had placed his sandwich on his head. Finnegan had, rather childishly, immortalized that exact image in stickfigure form and doodled it on a Magic Paper Airplane during a very boring potions class. The plane had been sent flying across the classroom when @Samuel Sauber's back had been turned, only to be returned to him with a crudely drawn, quite fat @Makaio Kāne next to it. When Sauber had turned back around, Finnegan had been forced to quickly shove the plane into his pocket, and now the crumpled blue paper emerged from it. He wondered how much kick the enchantment still had left in it, probably not much, but he had no other options. Using the ballpoint pen he had brought with him for his impromptu reconnaissance mission, Finnegan hastily scribbled a message on the paper airplane. A tap of the wand and a muttered Papyrus Reparo later, the little plane went flying down the corridor and swerved around the corner into darkness, carrying his hopes with it. Now all he could do was wait, and hope, and try not to think about what he'd have to do to keep Aamon alive if all else failed.

Hostis non semper hostis Undated Dungeons

@Aamon Athanatos. I've deliberately not named anyone to who the paper airplane is being sent in order to keep this flexible and so that we can discuss who might receive the batsignal. I've taken the liberty of not counting Papyrus Reparo as breaking the 1 spell per post guideline because it's really only there for flavour. It can be removed if need be.
Avery, Makaio, Samuel: it's my habit to tag Profesors when I mention them. If you prefer not to be tagged in the future, should your character come up, let me know! For clarity: as stated above I'm keeping the options open about who the paper airplane flies to so your character is not currently a receipient. For now, you're all just mentioned as part of the narrative.

Aamon Athanatos did not wake, but something in him shifted. Not like a soul returning to its vessel. No, that would be too graceful, too poetic. Aamon was anything but graceful, even if it was a bit too delicate. His soul, perhaps due to a bloodline of sin, had not earned such peace. His soul had not even attempted to flee. His soul remained, tethered to the shell it had once animated, not out of desire but obligation. His soul had no idea where to go beyond this mortal coil. Like a reluctant tenant refusing to vacate the premises despite mold on the walls and a collapsed roof. At least the apartment was rent-controlled. The tethers that bound Aamon’s essence to his body were weathered things, frayed like string left too long in the rain, but they held fast. They did not let go.

The shift came like a sigh, a weight settling. A reluctant agreement from within: I will not die yet, but today was not entirely off the table.

Shallow, uncertain breath bloomed from his cracked ribs, like a gasp torn from a coffin sealed in stone. There was a gravely nature to the noise his chest made. Aamon was not breathing because he wanted to, he was breathing because not breathing took more effort. Air entered his lungs like a trespasser or a brother. Harsh, unwelcome, but not turned away.

The first year remained motionless otherwise. Limbs splayed out in odd directions like a marionette abandoned mid-performance. There was irony in that image. Of all people and of all students, it would be Aamon left to resemble a broken and misused doll. Not just in form but in condition. The Slytherin had spent months plagued by them. Strange little dolls. Little gifts from a benefactor that should have been dead. These dolls represented little warnings. Finely stitched dark omens that had clung to him like a virulent curse. A doll had tried to take him by hand and pull him into the Forbidden Forest. Another actually took his hand. Incidents, each just as dangerous and desperate. But that had been months ago.

Now it seemed the forbidden forest had followed him back into Hogwarts proper. Or something worse.

Pale. Bone-white. His skin was dusted in cold, gray-blue tones that would have been beautiful in a statue. Not in a boy. His face, battered in a terrible way. He could be recognized somehow, perhaps Finnegan knew his enemies even when they were pulverized. Lashes long and low over bruised cheekbones, lips tinged violet. Aamon was like a broken porcelain thing carved by cruelty and circumstance. Too cold to the touch. Too still. Yet somehow, just barely clinging to life.

But the healing charm worked. Not perfectly. Not completely. Not even well (rolled a 7/100). But it worked.

Vulnera Sanentur had a melody to it, soft and lullaby-like. The gentle spell stitched itself through Aamon’s form like silk thread through torn cloth, too fine and too durable for the threadbare cloth. It found what it could and did what was within its limit. It returned no color to Aamon’s cheeks. It didn’t fix the broken bones in his leg or the fractured collarbone that jutted slightly under the skin. But it stopped the bleeding. It sealed what could be sealed. There was no longer a slow, silent draining of life from within him. The charm, imperfect as it was, had managed to buy Aamon time. Time could be a cruelty if it was simply death prolonged, but Finnegan might be able to save him still.

Inside the cavernous spaces of Aamon’s battered body, the magic of that song-like charm wove itself through veins and organs like a ghost slipping between the cracks. It found tears in tissue, rips in muscle, and it coaxed them into stillness. No more bleeding. No more tearing. No more draining away.

A twitch. A single motion. Fingers curled slightly inward toward his palm, like Aamon had remembered what hands were for indicated life, perhaps improvement in a boy that still appeared to be on the precipice of death. The twitch was but a phantom movement. A reflex. Nothing conscious. Aamon's glassy eyes remained open and unfocused, as if he were staring through this world of mortals and men and into another space that was both humbling and terrifying. There was no recognition in those mismatched irises. No life. Only haze.

Aamon was drowning behind those eyes. A soul sinking through stone and gravel, pressed beneath the weight of the dungeon and the horrors within it that his brother had inflicted on him. He would never believe it. His brother was cruel, dangerous even, but he was no killer. Aamon was sinking into his grave of stone, too far down to reach. But he was still there.

A breath rattled free, stronger than the last. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. Aamon wasn’t fixed. Not really. The healing had stabilized the parts of him that could be stabilized, but there were still ruptures inside. His collarbone had pierced muscle. His leg had twisted in on itself. His ribs pressed against lungs like they meant to pop them. There was bruising under bruises under bruises. Marks like ink black and sickly green all down his side, invisible beneath the rumpled fabric of his uniform shirt and wrinkled trouser pants that had previously been so carefully pleated.

Giddeon had brought the ceiling down he had not intended mercy.

Aamon had been caught in the blast, not directly, but close enough. It was Bombarda, that much was clear. The kind of spell you only cast when you wanted something gone—broken, exploded, obliterated. Cast in the wrong hands, it could bring down walls. In the right hands? It could kill a boy. And Gideon Athanatos had always considered himself the right hands. But Aamon saw no reason for the turn, he had not even considered the risk. Giddeon was approaching Nabi Park and Matthew Campbell, making them own up to their duplicity. He heard Matthew's voice raise, followed by a Bombarda. Aamon did not have time to flee, nor the presence of consciousness to fear for his brother's fate. A fate he would have no reason to believe Giddeon did not share.

This had not been a duel. There was no friendly competition or childish jest involved here. This was not an accident. This was a killing blow disguised obtained with opportunity. Giddeon hadn’t planned to collapse the passageway on Aamon there, but the moment presented itself. The dungeon was quiet. The corridor deserted. And Aamon... sweet, stupid, skittish Aamon, had wandered just far enough out of sight and just close enough to a rival in case blame needed to be laid.

All it took was a single incantation. No one would ask questions. Not when it looked like an old passage collapsed. Not when Gideon went on about his days unfussed, unbothered. They were not supposed to find Aamon until he stunk up the corridor. Until they could no longer excuse the smell for a dead rat.

Finnegan would come to realize some of this. It was likely that Finnegan had already suspected parts of the actual truth. The Gryffindor boy was sharp and cruel in ways Aamon had never fully understood. The second-year lion knew more about the Athanatos family than any outsider had a right to. He did not understand the way they were built, but he was on an inexcusable path of discovery and understanding that made him dangerous. An Athanatos was born to claw for power. They were trained to betray. Finn had seen what Mathias was, an egotist and an asshole. Intensely possessive and casually cruel, even when the act was needless, as if he needed to make a point. what sort of world makes a boy like that? What of Giddeon? A mad dog, or so it was believed. But there was calculation in this incident. In Winnie's accident as well. He acted at times rashly, a monster with a genteel appearance. There was a monstrous intelligence hidden beneath foppish layers of fine cloth. How could a child like Aamon be any different? They were all different, but monsters of a similar breed. If Aamon was not a fiend, he would become one. Maybe Finnegan didn’t know Aamon, not truly, but he understood enough to know one thing:

Aamon was not safe.

Not from the world. Not from his brothers. And not even from Finnegan himself.

The boy who hovered near him now had considered leaving. Aamon didn’t know this, he would perhaps never know this, but Finnegan's hesitation had been real. A brief flicker of decision, a whisper of possibility: what if I let him die? A passive kill was still a kill.

It would be easy. Logical, even. One fewer problem to deal with. One fewer Athanatos. Finnegan could bury him again beneath the rubble, walk away, and wash his hands of it. But he hadn’t. He’d stayed. Cast the spell. Whispered his name. Lifted rocks with shaking hands and sang his healing melody.

Aamon didn’t hear any of it. But the threads Finnegans magic had conjured held.

Somewhere deep inside the hollow shell of the boy who was too often called delicate, weak, a ghost of what he could be. Somewhere beneath all that, something decided not to die or perhaps was too incompetent to even do that right. It was not the same thing as wanting to live. Aamon’s body trembled once, sharply, and went still again.

The healing spell had slowed the bleeding, but the fractures needed mending. His chest still shuddered in pain with every breath. And the color remained absent from his lips. If help didn’t arrive soon, if another healing spell wasn’t cast, Aamon would cross that thin veil between barely and not at all.

Roll for effectiveness: Vulnera Sanentur. 7
It could have been better.

F I N N E G A NxC O N N O R
omnes magni homines primum fuerunt pueri

gryffindor, third-year
─────────✫

The faint echo of the healing spell died away, leaving the dungeon corridor in profound and hollow silence. Finnegan held his breath, waiting, hoping, and for a moment, nothing changed. Then, a single, shuddering twitch of Aamon’s fingers and a bubble of blood that formed and popped at the corner of his discoloured lips. He's alive But that wasn't the same as saved. Not even close. Finnegan leaned in, studying Aamon's face with the same careful attention he usual reserved for football and Quidditch practice. God, what happened to you? This wasn't like the injuries he'd seen before. Not even a bludger induced twelve feet freefall came anywhere close to how bruised and mangled Aamon appeared. The more he looked, the more he noticed being wrong: the bent angle, the awful jutting of his collarbone, like a broke tent pole ready to pop through the canvas of his skin. It was a sickening sight. But it was Aamon's eyes that made everything worse. They were wide-open, staring up at nothing, his mismatched pupils little more than tiny pinpricks. Finnegan hoped for Aamon's sake that he was unconscious and not frozen in paralyzed shock, unable to move, yet able to sense every excruciating detail. Finnegan leaned closer, his own breath held tight in his chest. The spell had worked, but only just and it wasn't enough. He had to do something. But what? He looked around him and peered into the dark, hoping against hope that someone, anyone, might appear at the far end of the corridor. Why weren't there any prefects or Professors when he actually needed them? Biting down hard on his lips, Finnegan returned his gaze to Aamon. The vacant, glassy gaze was unnatural and deeply unnerving and he could no longer stand it. He reached out a trembling hand and, with the soft pad of his thumb, gently brushed Aamon’s eyelids closed. The gesture felt like a final rite, a quiet closing of a book of which he could not stomach to read the end. Instead, he told himself that he was shielding Aamon from witnessing the desperate gamble he was about to take. The weight in his pocket felt like it was made of lead now. The phial with its thick, blue-silvery liquid. The thing he'd acquired through questionable means and hoped to never use, not on anyone, not even himself. Unicorn blood would work where his wandwork had faltered. It would drag Aamon back from the precipice of death and fill his lungs with air that wanted to be there. Would it heal anything? Finnegan didn't know, he only knew it would work, but at a terrible price. He fished the phial out of the innermost pocket of his robes and held it up. The bottle contained little more than a sip. Enough for one person, one use for when all else failed. Finnegan drew in a shuddering breath through his nostrils, uncorked the phial and— You can't, he told himself fiercely. You can't make that choice for him. Backed into a corner, his mind scrambled like a terrified mouse fleeing a ravenous cat. There had to be a way out, there had to be another way... Fuck... He pushed the cork back in and hastily tucked the phial away again. His hand was trembling as he picked up his wand again. He'd never tried this spell before. He'd only seen the nurses use it a few times in St. Mungo's. Often enough to have memorized the incantation and the motions, but that was about it. He'd never actually tried it on anyone before and if it went topsy-turvy, well, entire bones could go missing apparently, turning arms to jelly. But what choice did he have? Leave Aamon to die? Force him to live a cursed half life for the rest of his days? Or abandon all caution in a desperate bid for the boy's survival? Please don't let me make this worse. He shuffled closer, the stone cold and unforgiving against his kneecaps. His palm was slick with sweat as he gripped his wand, trying to remember exactly how the Healer had held hers. Not desperate. Not frantic. Calm. Focused. Like she had all the time in the world. He pointed his wand at Aamon's ribs, where the damage was obviously impeding the boy's breathing. His hand trembled again, but he forced it still with his other. This wasn't the time for the shakes. This was the time for proving everyone wrong, all his teachers, his family, everyone who had ever believed that the only thing he was good at was sports, and little else. No. He gritted his teeth. They're wrong. They're all wrong, and I'll show them, I will. This was going to work. Aamon would be fixed. There was no room for doubt. “Brackium Emendo.”

Hostis non semper hostis Undated Dungeons

@Aamon Athanatos If this one doesn't help either, it will be the unicorn blood next. Aamon's fate is in tatsu's hands...

Aamon didn't scream.

The Slytherin should have. In the stories, when pain lanced through the body like a hot knife, the protagonist screamed, or passed out, or writhed with the violence of it. The pain was usually inflicted when someone was aware enough to appreciate the effect. But Aamon Athanatos made no sound, not because he was strong or brave, but because he was barely there. He twitched once. No, 'twitched' is the wrong word. He jerked. That involuntary kind of motion that shot down the spine and seized the limbs in grotesque imitation of life. His mouth hung open, slack and dry, and for one horrific moment, his body arched off the ground as if some unseen marionette had tugged a string too hard.

Then, silence again.

No scream. No words. Just breath. A single, harsh, wet gasp. Like a bellows had been violently compressed and all the air forced through a small, moist tear.

The spell worked. Or rather, the spell was working. However, Finnegan's magic did not do so gently. Brackium Emendo was a spell best cast by Healers with steady hands, regulated magic, clean wards, and at least six years of formal mediwizard training. Finnegan had none of these things. He did not even formally know the spell, he was just emulating the words and the moments of mediwizards that found a need to set a bone in a behavioral health unit. It was like learning to become a veterinarian by passively observing a Walmart cashier that happened to mediate a few incidents involving companion pets allowed to run amuck. Limited training aside, the Gryffindor had a stubborn streak, a good memory, and the desperation of a teenager holding a breaking body together with duct tape, used gum and an atheist's prayer. Not ideal, but Aamon was never the sort to be fortunate. Finnegan was not the hero anyone wanted, but he was the hero needed.

And yet...



Aamon’s collarbone snapped back into place with a sickening crunch. The sound of it echoed in the dungeon like a thick branch limb being snapped in half. Something shifted in Aamon's chest. Bone meeting bone, muscles knit. His leg gave a terrible spasm as the fractured femur tried to pull itself straight, and for a moment, the angle of the broken thigh was worse than before. As if the body was resisting reformation. A shudder rippled down his spine and his fingers spasmed again, curling hard. His jagged nails cut into his palm.

In spite his body violent repair, Aamon's face remained eerily still throughout. His eyes at least closed. Aamon's mouth trembled slightly at the corners, but no awareness returned. It was as if his mind remained behind, locked in the shadows somewhere, watching from the dark.

Muscle memory tried to reassert itself on his damaged tissue. Nerve endings sparked back online. With no mind to register the pain, the body rebelled against it physically, twitching, shuddering, spasming violently as healing forced his battered form back into shape. He was like a corpse possessed by a careless puppeteer. His body was reacting as if he was being remade in a way that his body did not want to be. His body instinctively fought Finnegan's life-saving magic, as if anything that happened to his traumatized form was an unwelcomed assault.

For a horrible several minutes, Aamon was convulsing. Shivering, twitching. His body's movements were defined by small movements that were sharp and desperate, like a puppet that was being tugged in too many directions at once. His already dehydrated form soake4d in sweat from the exertion. Then, suddenly... stillness.

Finnegan would find that Aamon's leg had straightened. That the bones that made Aamon's ribs no longer threatened to puncture his lungs. The swelling around Aamon's collarbone had begun to recede, slightly. It still looked wrong, like eggs were slid beneath his skin. Aamon's breathing, still shallow and raspy, but his breath no longer made that ghastly wet sound with every pull.

Not better, but progress.

People usually assumed that when someone healed, that the process was gentle and uplighting. But there was noise and trauma. But that was a small cut, a bruise. They fade away with ease. This was not a series of small scrapes, a closed, non-displaced fracture. This body was shattered. The healing of such dire injury looked wrong. Like watching a victim in the middle of becoming something else. A felled boy that was not alive, not dead, not better, just… changing into something new, faster and harder than his enfeebled form should have been capable of. Aamon’s body looked like it had been through the wringer and was trying to reassemble itself from memory. And maybe it was. Maybe some part of him remembered how he used to be built, and the magic just followed that blueprint. But even a map was useless if half of the landmarks had been burned away.

Still, the breaths continued. Steadier. Stronger. Blood no longer pooled at the edges of his mouth. He was getting better. He was probably not going to die. That was the good news.

The bad news? Finnegan could feel it even now, the way the air throbbed around the boy like it remembered something. Not just the ceiling collapse. Not just the echo of the Bombarda spell that had tried to crush him under the weight of this academic establishment. No, the air felt watchful. Like it hadn’t meant for Aamon to die, but it wouldn’t exactly complain if he did. Like it knew something Finnegan didn’t. Finnegan was good at learning things, at paying attention and a part of him knew that someone wanted Aamon dead. And, that someone was nearly successful.

Finnegan did not like him. He almost left him to die. The boy seemed to draw his ire with ease. Maybe it was the Athanatos family legacy. Perhaps it was wizarding bloodline. The politics of pureblood society. His own sense of inadequacy or shame being projected. Or perhaps maybe it was the way Aamon drew darkness toward him. Or maybe it was simpler than any of that. Maybe some people were not supposed to make it. Maybe Aamon had already lost the right to live a hundred decisions ago and now every breath he drew came at someone else’s cost.

Despite his hesitation and reservations, Finn was trying to save him. Why? Finnegan probably could not answer that. Empathy? Guilt? Maybe. Or perhaps it was obligation. Finn had started something, saving him, and he needed to finish what he started even if his heart was not in it.

Aamon's face was still gray. There was a touch of something warmer creeping back into his cheeks. Like the spells were winning. Or trying. But the phial would remain heavy in Finn's pocket. He had been so close to using it. It had looked like the only option. And yet, he hadn’t.

Aamon would never thank him for that because he would probably never know. And that was probably for the best. Because mercy, like magic, came at a price.

Minutes later, although it felt like hours had passed, Aamon would wake up wrong. There was no grace with his resurrection, only pain and terror.

Disoriented. The first thing Aamon felt was weight. Not this crushing weight, not even pain exactly in spite of his numerous injuries. Rather, a full-body heaviness like someone had poured wet cement through his veins and told his bones to hold their breath. His skin felt tight and far away, like it belonged to someone else. Like his skin belonged to someone that was smaller than him, and this alien flesh had been pulled taut over a skeleton that was not his own. His lips were dry, cracked. His eyes burned under lids he had not realized were closed.

Why was it so dark?

He then remembered to breathe. He had been holding it. The breath was sharp. It sliced in as if it didn't belong to him, like someone else's gasp had been stuffed into his lungs by force. Aamon's back arched slightly off the stone, a crackle of magic whispering through his chest like smoke. Every nerve ending reawakened with a hum of disapproval that slowly rose into something more painful.

Aamon did not remember falling asleep. He remembered Gideon’s voice, sharp and bright like glass shattering in the dark. He was confronting Matt and Nabi about their relationship. He remembered Matthew’s shout. He said something about sheep maybe. Then...

Bombarda.

Stone and magic had kissed his spine with all the gentleness of a guillotine.

Everything after that was moment was blank. A smear of pain and cold with the sound of something breaking that he knew instinctively had been himself. His fingers twitched again. A faint movement. Deliberate this time. His digit resisted, a painful ache as if they had been crushed by a ton of stone. They had.

Everything hurt. Not the screaming, all-consuming kind of pain that made people dramatic in novels, but something quieter. Worse, in its way. This was the kind of pain that made someone too overwhelmed to cry, too overwhelmed to scream. The kind that made death look appealing because this would finally stop. Without acuity, his body simply hummed with a terrible anguish that he could not focus on long enough to cry out.

Instead, a groan slipped from between cracked lips, low, hoarse and wrong in his throat. It startled him, like the sound came from someone else. It hadn’t.

His eyes cracked open next, lashes fluttering sluggishly like they’d forgotten the choreography. One eye opened easier than the other, it seemed less heavy. The lighting in the dungeons was dim. The source, a wand glow or distant torchlight maybe. Even the allegedly harmless faint illumination felt blindingly bright, like the light was clawing its way through Aamon's skull.

Shapes resolved into a corridor and the outline of a man or a masculine woman. Movement. Breathing. Not his movement. Not his breath. Someone else was here Aamon realized. Aamon’s mouth opened. Dried blood tugged at the edge of the Slytherin's lip. “...Ulysses?” A name that slipped out in a breathless rasp. Instinctive, uncertain, reflexive. Ulysses was the first name that emerged through the mental fog. Ulysses Drake was an elder student, a quidditch player that Aamon looked up to him but as of late had rarely seen. Ulysses was a legacy that was half-myth now in juvenile memory. Aamon had not expected Ulysses to come looking for him, not really, but he was the only person Aamon could think of that would compel a shadow to possess such a terrible expression when others might celebrate. The face above him looked concerned. Like it was looking down on a travesty. Blurred by pain and darkness, the face was only familiar enough to confuse hope for recognition.

Except the shadow was not Ulysses Drake, it was Finnegan bloody Connor. Wasn't that the cherry on this sundae of suffering. The realization clicked in place like a manacle snapping shut. The sympathetic response caused haze of Aamon's vision sharpened just a little. Enough to recognize the depth of the frown. The confounding visage of worry. Possibly the Gryffindor crest if the Gryffindor was wearing his house clothes.

Aamon wanted to groan or roll over and die. At least pretend to. But instead, he blinked. Slowly. Disbelievingly. The universe had a cruel sense of humor.

Finnegan Connor, who inexplicably hated him. Finnegan Connor, who had once dragged him by the collar to a known killer's office after concussing him. The lion had the audacity to call the kidnapping and assault a rescue. Finnegan Connor was the same boy Aamon felt was glaring at him across rooms, even if it was not true. Finnegan would be burdened with that blame as well. For whatever the reason, Finnegan could not seem to untangle himself from the Athanatos name either by choice or by design. For someone who hated his family as much as he did, he spent a lot of time crawling through its shadows.

Aamon's vision tilted. He tried to lift an arm and failed. He tried to sit up and immediately decided no. No, to all of it. The pain flared like a tide coming back in over broken rocks, sparking his vision in a sea of searing, white-hot pain. "Figures..." Aamon announced, a tone of defeat in his voice. Aamon tried to speak again immediately after, but he coughed instead, the sound raw and wet. Fresh blood trickled at the corner of his mouth. He gave a breathless, humorless huff that might’ve been a laugh in another life.

He wet his lips with effort, the taste of copper. His voice rasped out, bitter at the edges. “You look like you dug me out with your teeth.” He coughed once. It felt like breaking glass in his chest. He winced. “...Thanks,” he added, quiet. Like it hurt to say. It did in more ways than one.

Then, as if remembering what world he lived in, Aamon gave Finnegan a look, brow half-lifted despite his battered state. “Should I… be worried you’re going to drop a chandelier on me to finish what Matt could not?”

F I N N E G A NxC O N N O R
omnes magni homines primum fuerunt pueri

gryffindor, third-year
─────────✫

Finnegan's stomach dropped like a stone plummeting down a well, and for a moment, he thought it had all gone terribly wrong. What had he done? He staggered backward, shaking his head in disbelief while Aamon's body twisted and jerked and convulsed like a man possessed. The sounds, oh god, the sounds. Bones grinding, crunching, cracking, even squelching asthey were forced back into place. There was nothing gentle about it, nothing gentle at all about the thrashing of a body that had been beaten, crushed, and starved of air and water for far too long. Any moment now one of those bones would explode outward, ripping free from its skinny vessel and spraying the surroundings with thick blood. This was all wrong. Everything was going wrong! I've killed him... I've actually killed him... Apprehension and disgust battled on his face as he took another step backward, not wanting to be hit in the face by Aamon's exploding organs when inevitably he'd be left standing there over a smoking, eviscerated body. Then of course, somenone would show up, and they would conclude the obvious: that he had murdered Aamon Athanatos in a most gruesome and brutal way. He retched at the thought, nearly doubled over when suddenly— A groan A groan so low and hoarse, so distant, so alien a sound in the dark hallway that for one terrible moment, Finnegan thought some dark, unseen creature drooling at the muzzle had snuck up on them. A ragged rasp sounded and Finn's legs went wobbly in relief. "...Ulysses?" Aamon's voice was like a dying ember, but in the dark bowels of the castel, even the faintest light shone brightly. “Aamon—” He hardly recognized the thin, frayed sound that must have been his own voice. “I'm so sorry, I'm— stay still now...” His legs moved before his brain caught up, carrying him forward in a stumbling rush. He dropped beside Aamon, his knees hitting the floor with a sharp crack as he once again dropped to his knees beside the boy. “Don't move too much, you're in a bad state b-but... but you'll be fine, you'll be f-fine...” It hardly sounded convincing. Surely Aamon could also hear the faint whistling of his own, shallow breathing. "Figures..." Finnegan's hands patted the cold stone until his fingers found the familiar smoothness of Aamon's wand. “Here. It's your wand,” he said, wrapping Aamon's fingers gently around the aspen handle like he was teaching a baby how to hold a fork. "You look like you dug me out with your teeth... Thanks. Should I… be worried you’re going to drop a chandelier on me to finish what Matt could not?" Finnegan's face darkened upon the mention of Matt. Was Pride behind this? But why? How? Pride could hardly feel threatened by his younger brother, could he? It didn't make sense. He opened his mouth to ask for clarification, but then shut it. Again he was presented with a terrible choice. Either he would get what information he could from Aamon before the young Slytherin drew his final breath or he'd have to hope that whichever miraculous force had kept Aamon alive so far, would continue to favor the first year. “Aamon, I need you to keep very still and just breathe, can you do that? Just breathe, don't look, don't talk, just breathe. just— j-just... You're...” Finnegan swallowed down a gulp, “...it's not looking good, it's...bad, b-but I'll get you of here, alright? Just breathe, just keeping breathing for me, OK? Help is on the way...” Was it? He couldn't bear to tell Aamon that he wasn't sure if help would come and that all of it hinged on a cheap paper airplane that had little kick left in it. What if it got lost? What if Evelynn didn't notice it? What it got blown off course by a stray gust of wind? Finnegan's clammy hands wrapped around Aamon's and squeezed gently, trying to give the boy some courage and hope though he had little himself. “I have to— listen, you'll have to manage on your own for a bit, just a bit! I won't be long, I promise, I'll be back before you know it...” Finnegan couldn't be sure anything he said was much comfort to Aamon, but it would have to do. “Just breathe,” he croaked one last time before he reluctantly let go of Aamon's hand and rose to his full height on shaky legs. “I'll be right back, I swear it, I'm going to get more help to clear this, to get you out of... just breathe.” He'd never thought that turning his back on an Athanatos would weight this heavily on him. The wand-light would sway and dim, sway and dim, moving further and further away until only a pitch-dark blackness remained. Even the sound of Finnegan's hurried footsteps would sound increasingly distant. The corridor seemed to stretch endless as he ran, his legs pumping like pistons. He was panting hard by the time he reached the nearest suit of armor in the maze that were the Hogwarts dungeons. He only afforded himself a few seconds to catch his breath before he aimed his wand at it. “Piertotum Locomotor!” He hoped it would work. And if it did, that he'd make it back in time.

Hostis non semper hostis Undated Dungeons

@Aamon Athanatos attempting to animate a suit of armor to help clear rubble and potentially carry Aamon. I will leave it up to you whether you want to roll the dice for this action or not.

@Evelynn Decipio I think we're very close to getting Eve involved. Maybe after Aamon's next post?

The darkness had teeth. And it still hadn’t let go.

The darkness breathed with him. It pulsed within him. Cold stone beneath his back in jagged piles that would spirit away any hope of rest. The scent of dust, blood, and sweat made the air thick. Somewhere nearby, Aamon's own wand lay curled in his barely-functioning hand, a limb he didn’t remember growing. And Finnegan: blurry, breathing, loud-mouthed Finnegan, was not a hallucination. He was not sure if he should feel relieved or terrified, but he hurt too much to ponder the subject.

"You know," Aamon croaked, voice nothing but the whisper of a burnt-out match, "when I pictured death, I thought it might have a bit more... dignity. Robes. Bells. Some sort of divine judgment. Maybe a herald with cheekbones.” Unless Finn was dead too, but that also means he went to the bad place. He let out a half-hearted laugh, trying to bring levity to this disaster, but the huff from the laughter sent waves of agony through his broken form. Aamon was probably the only one that thought he was funny.

Aamon blinked slowly, his skull pounding with every heartbeat. The air in the dungeons tasted like iron. It was not the iron bars was it? That was his blood. His tongue felt like cloth. This was bad wasn't it? The sort of bad where people lie and say everything is going to be okay. “I'm dying aren't I?” He finally admitted, his voice shaking. There was no quip, no punchline. "That's why you're being so nice," the rising panic evident in his voice. If anything, it was astonishing that Aamon was able to find the energy to be terrified.

His gaze barely shifted, but he could hear Finnegan’s panicked shuffling beside him. He could feel the sweat dripping off the boy’s temple as if it were his own. His limbs refused to respond. Not really. His fingers twitched like spiders on strings. The rest of him was still rubble. He felt like something someone half-digested and spit out. A shallow breath, sharp and pained.

Maybe dying was not the worst thing that happened to him today. It would put an end to this. Perhaps his wish would be granted he realized when Finnegan broke the news. “I have to— listen, you'll have to manage on your own for a bit, just a bit! I won't be long, I promise, I'll be back before you know it...”

Manage what, his crushed limbs? His concussed head? Hold Parliament? He could barely turn his head, his eyes, unfocused as they were, narrowed at Finnegan. Aamon was not able to get a clear picture. Just an outline of a form. Finn was leaving Aamon to die. Aamon should have expected it. “Just breathe,” Finnegan reminded him before he let go of Aamon's hand. He did not remember when Finnegan had clasped it. “I'll be right back, I swear it, I'm going to get more help to clear this, to get you out of... just breathe.”

Right, breathe.

That in-out-thing.

“I get it,” he exhaled defeated as Finnegan's footsteps retreated. He was not sure if his final words would be heard as they reverberated down the long, dark stone corridor as Finn's wandlight faded from sight. There was no venom in Aamon's words as the light faded. He was left only with the raspy weight of truth, crumbling under the pressure of its own reality. Aamon coughed, it sounded wet, raw, and it moved something not quite blood but close and he grimaced. A shard of something shifted in his chest. He breathed through it.

Aamon was going to die in the dark, twitching like a cursed scarecrow. Bold strategy reviving him just so he could remember dying. But he did not have time to dwell on dark thoughts as he accepted his fate. He just hoped it would be quick.

Then there was a distant metallic groan. The kind of sound that usually heralded something dreadful in children’s stories. Or ghosts in the attic. Or older brothers if you lived in the Athanatos household. Aamon didn’t see the armor at first, but he heard it. Clanking, screeching, groaning, like someone had resurrected an orchestra made entirely of rusted silverware and trauma.

The clatter of steel joints echoed down the corridor.

The very floor seemed to tremble under the lurching footsteps of the shambling knight as it rounded the corner, eyes hollow and helm crooked. Its gauntlets flexed like it had just been asked to help deliver a cursed child. One arm was missing its vambrace. Its sword was dragging. And worst of all, its gait had the swagger of something with absolutely no medical training.

Aamon turned his head just enough to wheeze into the floor: “Wonderful. I’m being carried to my death by Sir Scoliosis.”

The knight stopped—if “stopped” meant jolted abruptly mid-step, emitting a sound like a metal tooth being extracted—and waited for Finnegan’s next instruction.

F I N N E G A NxC O N N O R
omnes magni homines primum fuerunt pueri

❶ ❷ ❸ ❹ ❺ ❻ ❼
─────────✫

Anyone else would have drawn the sensible conclusion at the picture that presented itself in the dark hallway. Finnegan Connor held out his wand and guided a large suit of armour which held up a large stone over the mangled outline of another boy. With just one flick of his wrist Finnegan could will Sir Scoliosis to drop the heavy stone on Amon’s head, ending the Slytherin’s misery once and for all. And for a second, it seemed like that was precisely the intention as the creaking suit of armour faltered. But instead of pointing his wand down, Finnegan swished it sideways, averting disaster. Aamon’s little quip had almost broken his tenuous control over the animated suit of armour. “S-sorry,” he squeaked. Despite everything, he was a little impressed that Aamon, half-dead and in near total darkness, knew this suit’s exact name, though it was an odd one. He’d never heard any portraits talk about a Sir Scoliosis and they knew most of the suits’ names. Though being somewhat vertically challenged, it wasn’t entirely Finnegan’s fault that the Slytherin’s joke flew over his head. “I'm trying to concentrate,” Finnegan said in a strained voice. Sir Scoliosis moved again, picking up more rubble and haphazardly throwing it aside, freeing Aamon from some of the larger rubble that had crushed his legs. Such was the terrible noise from the animated armour and its heavy labour that Finnegan did not hear the sharp click-clack of heels on stone until Evelynn was practically beside him. “Eve!” While he was incredibly relieved to see her, it came out sounding more like a startled gasp. “You came. Thank goodness…” Sir Scoliosis was swaying dangerously again before Finn steadied him and moved him aside to stand at ease by the nearest wall. Most of the heavy rubble had been cleared, but it wasn’t until Finnegan cast “Lumos” again that the sickening extent of the damage became clear. “This is Evelynn Decipio,” he said with pomp and stateliness as though he were announcing a celebrity to Aamon. “She’s a sixth year and a brilliant witch and she knows how to fix things. You’re going to be okay now, you are. Eve’s very good at fixing things.” And for the first time that night, Finnegan actually sounded like he believed it. “I found him this way,” he said to Evelynn while he held up his wand to illuminate the entirety of the terrible scene. ““Well, there was more a lot more rubble. I only saw a bit of his hand sticking out, just a finger actually, if I hadn’t…” His voice trailed off into nothingness. “I already tried Vulnera Sanentur, but I don’t hink I did it right. I fixed his bones though, brackium em- well, you know the spell. He looks parched though, I don’t know how long he’s been under. You said something about Matt?” Finnegan directed his speech toward Aamon now. “Did your brother do this to you?” Aamon quite possibly had the worst family but even Finnegan had not considered casual fratricide to have been an option. “Should I get the nurse?” He asked of both of them. It seemed the obvious thing to do even if it meant losing loads of house points and earning himself a detention for wandering the castle at night. Especially him, especially so soon after he had returned to Hogwarts, especially after all that had happened in the forest. “I can get to professor Sauber the fastest, or maybe Professor Lancaster?” Between the two of them he vastly preferred the runes professor despite how posh she seemed. At least she had a soul, which was more than could be said of Professor Sauber, who genuinely frightened him. It also didn’t help that the very reason of his nocturnal wandering could be explained by the forgotten scrap of paper in his pocket, listing the three volatile ingredients he would eventually need to steal from the potions storeroom. Sauber or Lancaster would merely have to ask him to turn out his pockets for his guilt to become plain. But such considerations were not on his mind right now. The real question was whether he ought to bring help here, or bring Aamon to the help. “Definitely not Professor Lecuyer though…” Finnegan added softly with the faintest of smiles showing on his lips. “I promise.”

@Evelynn Decipio @Aamon Athanatos | Hostis non semper hostis Undated The Dungeons