VIOLET (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

15.

"Marlowe-" she said, but he didn't want to hear whatever she had to say. Her tone alone told him he couldn't take it right now.

"I did it," he told her. His voice sounded faint and weak. "I don't know if it worked or not, but I did it." He did not open his eyes, could not look at her face. He didn't want to see her examining that bite, her fingers gone now.

"Give me two minutes, Caiti said. She got up, and he thought she was just going to leave, but then she felt her hand in his hair, thumb brushing across his forehead. "Two minutes," she repeated, and then her footsteps retreated and he was left in the loudest silence he'd ever heard.

—-

It was still dark outside as Caiti hurried across the yard to the little shed. She didn't have a clue how early in the morning it was.

Marlowe had left it unlocked, luckily, and inside, she found a glass cup sitting on the coffee table. Pooled along one side of the bottom was a tiny amount of pale yellow liquid, maybe an eighth of a teaspoon at the most. Afraid it would dry up if she didn't transfer it to a better container quickly, she picked it up and turned to go, thinking she would take it to the greenhouse, transfer it to a more appropriate vial, and then return to make sure Marlowe was alright.

But before she could leave, she spotted a deep red spot on the sofa and she thought back to that wound on his arm that had still looked wet and how exceptionally pale Marlowe had looked. Caiti wavered. The shape of that bite... it was so obvious what had happened. It wasn't just a scratch. She just didn't understand why he'd done it.

She disapparated right away, her stomach full of nerves.

Working as quickly and as a carefully as she could, Caiti found an empty vial and used her wand to siphon the venom from one container to the other before sealing it up tight. She would worry about labeling it later. She wasn't likely to forget what this was.

Then she turned to her shelf of ingredients, pushing some aside. Dittany was easy to find. She had plenty of it. Powdered silver on the other hand — she was almost certain she didn't have it, unless maybe it had come in that set of expensive ingredients her parents had given her last year at Christmas. The box they'd come in was under a bunch of her more regularly used ingredients and she hurried to clear them off so she could pull it off the shelf.

Inside were a number of tiny jars, arranged in alphabetical order for the most part. She had used a few. She searched through them all twice, heart sinking, but then she spied an 'S' peeking around the underside of a jar on the edge and she pulled it out. Powdered Silver, it read in loopy writing.

"Oh thank god," Caiti said to herself. She grabbed a bowl, not entirely sure what she was doing. She was not a healer. Taking her best guess at the ratio of ingredients she mixed the two together, stirred them up into a paste, and then grabbed the two bottles, the bowl, and the spoon she'd used to mix. She'd take it all with her just in case.

With everything in hand, she headed back to Marlowe's house. He looked even whiter than when she'd left him, or maybe she was just noticing it more completely because she'd woken up now. "Oh god, Marlowe," she whispered, hurrying over to him.

Marlowe's eyes opened a sliver.

Using the back of the spoon, Caiti spread a little of the mixture onto the cut. She felt tears pricking at her eyes. "Damn it, I don't even know what I'm doing," she said, mostly to herself. "This is probably all wrong. We should go to the hospital."

"No," Marlowe murmured.

"You're bleeding," Caiti said, taking hold of his hand. "You've been bleeding all night it looks like. We have to stop this. It won't stop on its own."