tenebriisx:

They’d called it bravery.

Damon never truly considered the repercussions of his actions, a dirty habit he’d honed young and never grew out of. Growing up, it had only intensified to the point where he’d become a wrecking ball, prone to destroying everything he touched. Perhaps it was why he’d been recruited young, a ripe fifteen when he was ushered into meetings with those dawned masks at nightfall. He’d watched the flames erupt in the wake of the quidditch world cup. He’d seen the panic that had emerged following the battle at the ministry, and he’d been washed through plenty of lies and deceit, pardoned for doing underage magic, the darkest of sorts. And still, in doing all of that, he’d never taken into consideration the fruit of his transgressions. Maybe that’s what made it most exciting.

Until tonight.

It had begun well enough, a muggle neighborhood set ablaze with little more than a few bottles of kerosene and a wizard’s touch. Damon hadn’t even needed to draw his wand, his presences more geared toward numbers rather than contribution. His father was leading the pack, his mother no doubt somewhere overlooking their progress, waiting for her boys to come home so that she could turn a blind eye while Giuseppe pointed out everything Damon had done wrong. Boy, was he looking forward to it. It would never come.

He couldn’t recall how it happened. He wasn’t certain how he’d found himself in that predicament, but he did remember one of the elders shoving him towards the alley, telling him to search for those who would be trying to escape the flames. He’d been certain that there had been at least a few people in one of those homes, and yet there had been no screams, no cries for mercy. This had convinced him as well as Damon that someone was making a run for it. Well, he found two of them.

From one of the houses further down the block, a couple of brothers had come racing through the alley perpendicular to the one Damon was rushing through. He’d barely aimed at one before the other stunned him, a blast of white light illuminating the alley, and moments later, Damon fell limp to the ground. It was all that he could remember, not even offered the chance to call for help, and in that instant, he wondered if he’d made the right decision. And he didn’t just mean running into the alley and doing as he was told.

The voice was distant, as though it were nothing more than an echo from miles away, slowly bleeding into his conscious mind and stirring it with slender fingers. There was a subtle jolt then, like a needle had been jabbed into that conscious mind, and bolted upright into a sitting position, head swiveling around in confusion. “Wha - where - I -”

Looking up, ice blue met familiar eyes, eyes which he shouldn’t be seeing, not with so much LIFE within them. Pushing himself up, he pointed a hand at her. “Where am I? Where did you -  where - how did I - what the fuck is going on, Gilbert!”

The adrenaline only lasted mere seconds before he found himself crumbling to the ground once more, hand grasping at his side and face going completely pale. Pulling a trembling hand away, he found his fingers coated in a thick coat of fresh blood. Perhaps it had been more than a stunning spell after all, which would explain where his mask had gone off to. His victims-turned-predators had doubled back to try and finish the job, and it had been with something poisonous. Later, when he wasn’t seething with rage or swarmed with sickness, he’d realize that Elena may have saved his life in more ways than one. However, for the time being, he was perfectly content with crashing face first into the grass with a groan.

Elena remembered the first time she had meet Professor McGonagall, and was told by the Head of Gryffindor that she was a witch. At first, she wanted to laugh because it sounded so ridiculous that magic was real, but it explained so much. The young girl finally understood why she didn’t fit in at school. Why certain things happened that were outside of her control, like one day when  this other student was making fun of her for getting the answer wrong an eraser had flown from the chalkboard and hit the student in the face all in an instant. She wasn’t able to explain herself, and from that day on they all called her a freak. Now she finally understood that she was not a freak, but so much more.

Finally, she found the place where she belonged, but naturally, she was nervous about joining this new world. She knew nothing about this wizarding world, so she decided to find out everything she could. That was when she had meet Hermione in a book shop, and that was when she learned about Death Eaters. She found a book that mentioned every historical occurrence in the wizarding world, and that was when she learned about the first war. She would never understand the sick pleasure these people took in murder and it would always puzzle her how they could so care so little about someone’s life. It was morbid to her that anyone could look at a person and view them as worthless.

So, from a very young age, Elena learned that she did not want to get involved with such people, and that was the beginning of her desire to join the good guys. She wanted to defend people like her, and that is how she became a member of Dumbledore’s Army in her fifth year. Their Defense Against the Dark Arts class was a joke that year, and the brunette was eager for any chance to practice spells. It was the same reason she had joined Charms Club in order to learn more Charms outside of class, and one day it was sure to be useful.

Now was that day.

A sigh of relief leaves her lips as doe orbs meet those familiar icy blues, and for a moment she thinks everything will be ok, for a moment it doesn’t matter that they dislike each other. All of that quickly fades when she’d faced with all these questions, and she can’t help but to roll her eyes. She didn’t know why she was expecting any other reaction from him. “I’m saving you’re life. That’s what’s going on.“ That was all she was able to say before she watched him collapse back onto the ground, and that was when she saw the blood on his fingers which wasn’t a good sign. Now, she needed to use everything she knew to save his life.

“Dammit Damon.”  She didn’t have time to muse over what he had gotten himself into, because she had to act quickly. The girl quickly rolled him onto his back, and began to push his clothing out of the way. The dried blood was cleared away with one simple healing spell, but there was clearly more to the injury. She didn’t have any kind of access to ingredients to make a potion, but there was a muggle remedy that might work. The girl had to bring him inside the lake house, and in order to do that without hurting him further, she had to levitate him.

In a matter of seconds, she was on her feet, quickly unlocking the front door to the lake house with a simple spell, and levitating him behind her with another simple spell. Once they were safely inside, Elena gently lowered him onto the couch and took his wand ( tucking it behind her ear ) just to be safe before she left him there to search the kitchen for the ingredients she needed. It was a simple poultice made from ingredient like sugar, salt, bread, and milk. She gathered the ingredients with haste and turned them into a paste-like substance in mere minutes. Then the girl grabbed two dish towels and two bowls, filling one with the paste and the other with hot water. She brought the bowls to the living room and placed them on the coffee table. Now she had no choice but to remove his shirt to gain access to the wound without having to fight against the fabric. She wasn’t sure if he could hear her or not, but she was going to talk anyway.

“Now don’t try to fight me on this, but your shirt has to come off.”

She didn’t wait for a debate before she crouched down and quickly maneuvered the material off of him. Once it was off, she wiped the exposed wound with the hot water and then she ripped his shirt to make a gauze to cover the wound. Then she spread the poultice over the gauze and tore another strip to conceal the poultice. Now all she could do is wait, reapply, and pray that this worked. A deep sigh of relief falls from her lips as she leans back to watch over him. The second he showed any sign of worsening she planned on taking him to St. Mungo’s. 

“So…I might owe you a new shirt, and on the bright side you’re not dead.”