Chapter 1
It is another cold night as Juliette finds herself, blood dripping from her mouth and multiple bite marks along her body, in front of her estranged elder sister’s house.
She isn’t sure how she got there, and she isn’t sure why she is all bloody either– but she figures it must’ve been something to do with that crazy-eyed bloke who was eyeing her at the bar earlier.
Her whole body aches and her feet are covered with boils and blisters. Her shoes are where only god knows, and her clothes are scattered with rips.
The weirdest thing is that although Juliette first believes it has only been a few hours, as it is now sunrise, it must’ve been over a day.
She lifts her foot and tries to get a few steps in before tripping and sucking in a breath. Something is definitely broken there, too. Fun.
She wipes her hand across her mouth as she winces and stands back up, starting again to make her way to the door—Tuney would let her in, right? Juliette’s really going to have to hope she even recognizes her—she stumbles a bit, but now she’s at the door, and– oh god, that’s a lot of blood on her hand, you know what? It’s fine. It’s fine. She tells herself, knocking on the door, It’ll all be fine, Tuney will let me in, and I can use her phone to call Lily and then she can take me to St. Mungo’s and we’ll figure out what happened from there. She bites her lip as she hears a faint, ‘Coming!’. It’ll all be fine.
She nearly lets her eyes fall shut before the door opens and they are shot open to the sight of her sister, who seems equally as tired as her, if Juliette is being honest— Petunia has dark bags under her eyes and is paler than that guy at the bar, and man was he pale.
With a pinched face, Petunia yawns and holds her hand on her nose bridge. “It’s, what, four in the morning? Who are you and why are you here?” Her eyes widen as she looks up at Juliette and shrieks, "Iris, oh my goodness! What are you doing here? What happened to you?”
“Not exactly sure myself, Tuney.” Juliette replies with a tight smile, “Hey, can I use your phone? I’d like to call someone if I can.”
Petunia looks horrified at her sister’s response but ushers her inside and into the living room nonetheless, where she forcibly lays Juliette down on the couch and goes off to the kitchen to look for the first aid kit.
Juliette wonders if going here was really the best idea as she sees Petunia coming back with the largest first aid kit she’d seen in a while. She wasn’t that hurt. From what she could tell, at least. She feels awkward sitting on such a nice couch, all bloodied up.
Petunia sits down and patches her up silently, adding in a, ‘this may hurt,’ or a, ‘don’t move’, occasionally. When she’s finished, she sits at the couch across from Juliette, arms crossed and worried eyes.
Juliette may not feel that hurt, but the amount of stitching and ointment Petunia used has her doubting that. She looks down at her hands, currently covered in bandages, and wonders to herself what happened.
She furrows her brows. It hasn't been that long, has it? When she got into the pub it was only half past six p.m, and now it’s about six in the morning. How did twelve hours pass and she not notice? It’s not possible. Not unless she had a time turner or was seriously unconscious, she lets out a sound of confusion, how?
And how did she get so injured? She frowns, it must’ve been that man in the pub. He was the only person she’s seen other than Tuney in the past day. That she remembers. It had to have been him. The scratches on her hands are deep, and Merlin, does her neck hurt. Juliette hadn’t been paying attention to it until now, but really… she runs her hands around it, and removes them after feeling copious amounts of bandage.
“Iris?” Petunia asks, and Juliette snaps up to look at her. She winces. Ouch, shouldn’t do that. Hurts the neck.
“Yea, Tuney?”
Petunia looks like she’s gone through a hell of a night herself, but she asks, “Does it still hurt?”, anyway.
“I’m okay now.” She gives Petunia a strained smile.
“Well, good. We can deal with what happened in a minute, I suppose.” She sighs, but it turns into a yawn halfway through. “Let’s get you out of those rags first. I wouldn’t want the neighbours seeing you in something like that.”
“...I’m sorry for waking you so early.”
“Don’t be,” Petunia smiles for the first time in the whole time Juliette’s been there. “I would’ve woken up anyway thanks to Dudley’s crying. If there’s one thing that boy’s good at, it’s crying.”
Juliette frowns. Dudley? She thinks for a moment, but she doesn’t quite remember any ‘Dudley’s she’s met in her life. Although… she thinks, she hasn’t seen Petunia in quite a few years. Since her wedding, actually. It’s entirely possible she could’ve had a child with Vernon. Juliette grimaces as Petunia leads her up the stairs. She hopes not, she’s never liked him all that much. Of course, she was only about 14 when they got married, and at 14 Juliette doesn’t think she liked anyone all that much.
Petunia leads her down the hall of the upstairs until they reach the end and she gets a ladder from the closet. The woman climbs the ladder and bangs on an attic door until it finally pushes back and she crawls up. A few moments later, she descends with an armful of clothing that looks like Petunia’s sort of style.
She hands the clothing to Juliette, “Unfortunately, this is about all I have, unless you want… Lily’s …old uniform, or your clothes from primary school.”
“Are these yours?”
“Yes, from a few years back, so they should fit you fine.” She starts to descend back downstairs, and Juliette follows as quickly as she can. “They’re not really your style, from what I remember, but they’ll look alright, and will hide your bandages much better too.”
Juliette looks down at the clothes now in her arms, they’re rather dully coloured and frilly, and most of them seem to go up past the neck, which she supposes is nice considering the current situation with her neck. The lack of bright colours makes her frown, but she’s grateful nonetheless.
Petunia shows her to the bathroom, and the moment the door is closed Juliette immediately starts peeling her wet clothes off her. They’re all stained a dark brown-ish red, and are sticking to her immensely, but they smell weirdly good. She stares at herself in disbelief for a minute in the mirror, taking in just how injured she seemingly is. She didn’t feel that bad, really!
She looks herself up and down. The bandages make their way all the way up her arms, stopping at her shoulders, but starting again at her neck. She feels them on her feet and she’s pretty sure Petunia put some on her back. Her torso is relatively unscathed, but she can make out some cuts that have started scabbing.
She feels a bit nauseous at the sight of it all, and supposes she should just stop looking. Juliette quickly puts on the clothes and rushes out the bathroom, feeling rather stiff and uncomfortable.
Petunia smiles again as she sees her. They’re back in the living room now, and Juliette sees that her sister has that look that she knows too well. The look that she knows means her sister has questions.
Juliette sits back down on the couch across from Petunia. She shifts uncomfortably on the nice furniture, worried her blood will… dirty it or something.
Petunia is stern as she says, “I have questions.”
“I know.” Juliette stares at her for a second. “Are you going to ask them?”
“Yes, I’m going to ask them, you child.” Petunia rubs her face in exasperation. “Just give me a moment to process the fact that you showed up on my doorstep, bloody, and looking like a homeless person.”
“I have a house!” She huffs.
“You certainly didn’t look like it.”
Juliette pouts and looks away from her sister.
“Don’t be a child.” Petunia scolds. She pauses, closes her eyes, and opens them again. “Okay. First off, do you remember anything from the past day or so?”
She stops her pouting and looks back at Petunia. She leans back and shrugs. “Not really.”
“Wonderful help.”
“I remember a pale guy at a bar. He was staring at me quite a bit, I think.”
Petunia raises an accusing eyebrow, focusing on the wrong thing here, “And what were you doing at a bar?”
Juliette blinks. “I’m twenty? I’m past the legal drinking age by a good two years now…I was drinking.”
It’s now Petunia’s turn to blink. “Right. I haven’t seen you since my wedding, and you were younger then.”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen, yes.” She stares for a minute, before going back to her usual stern self. “Okay, so at a… bar,” She says in disdain, “you met a pale man who stared at you.”
“I didn’t meet him, per se, he was just near me.”
“I’m sticking with you meeting him.”
“...Alright then.”
“Anything else?”
“Uhm,” Juliette pauses. It strikes her that she doesn’t remember a good lot of the last twelve hours. Not great, she thinks. “Well, I met him, I guess. Then, I blacked out for, like, a while, and I was standing outside your house when I woke up.”
Petunia huffs, “You’ve never been great at remembering important details, have you? You know what, you’re fine now. Let’s see if, in the morning, you remember anything else, alright?”
“Erm, alright.”
“For now,” She stands up abruptly. “Let’s get you situated. I’d prefer to give you somewhere more comfortable, but the couch will have to do.”