Nervous Tics
Lord Voldemort hated St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Illnesses. It reeked of death and decay, there were anxious Healers constantly rushing about in their flashy lime green robes, and it was teeming with far too many distressed friends and relatives of people who had likely ended up there due to their own stupidity.
It annoyed him to no end that he was also there because of stupidity.
He had warned her that he did not think continuing with Quidditch was the wisest choice, and what had she done? Gone and ceased all her vital functions in the next match. He was not sure if he ought to be infuriated at her for being so tremendously stupid, or impressed that she had somehow survived.
Natalie had been brought to St. Mungo’s from Dallas; nobody was sure what floor “we-don’t-know-what-happened-but-her-heart-stopped” qualified as, so they’d taken her to the fourth floor for spell damage upon the decision of Fabienne Lestrange, who had promptly kicked him, Antonin Dolohov, Winky Crockett, and Seymour Mulciber out of the ward so the Healers could work. Crockett and Mulciber had gone off to find Tiberius Malfoy and so he and Dolohov had wandered about the hospital, bored, until a Healer had yelled at them. They ended up in the tea room on the fifth floor. Dolohov sat across from him, staring into an empty cup of tea and furiously jogging one leg under the table in a rampant display of anxious energy.
“Stop,” he said to Dolohov.
Antonin looked up in confusion. “What?”
“Stop moving,” he said in annoyance.
“Oh,” Dolohov slowed the bouncing of his leg under the table, giving him a look as if asking if that was what he wanted.
“Yes, that,” he said testily, not entirely sure why everything was irritating him.
“Right,” said Dolohov, stopping completely now. He dropped his wand onto the table and began to spin it in circles, which was just as infuriating as him incessantly bouncing his leg like some fretful child.
“Stop,” he repeated.
Dolohov stared at him. “I did.”
“And now stop that,” he gestured at the spinning wand.
Dolohov stopped spinning the wand, but his leg immediately began bouncing again. Voldemort gave him a pointed look.
“Oh,” said Dolohov, as though he finally understood. His leg stopped shaking. “Didn’t realize.”
Tom shook his head and sighed, not bothering to say anything.
“When do you think they’ll let us back in?” asked Dolohov, clearly not content with just sitting quietly. His eyes roved all around the tea room, falling on everyone present for a moment before moving onto the next.
“No idea,” he said, glancing to look at whoever Dolohov’s gaze had remained on for longer than usual. It was a pretty, dark-haired witch who couldn’t be more than a few years older than Antonin; her lime-green robes indicated that she was a Healer. She carried a stack of parchment and flicked through it as though heading back to her shift from a break. As she neared their table, Dolohov’s hand flew back to his wand; he spun it towards the witch, and muttered something under his breath. She tripped and dropped the papers, which scattered all over the floor of the tea room.
Instantly, Dolohov jumped to his feet and hurried to help her.
“I’ve got it!” he said, gliding over and waving his wand with excessive flair. The papers soared up from the floor and gathered themselves into a neat little pile, floating right in front of the witch.
“Thanks,” she said tonelessly, taking the parchment from the air and walking out of the tea room without giving him a second glance. Dolohov stared after her until he heard sniggers from two elderly witches across the room. With a scowl, he shoved his wand into his pocket and dropped back into his seat. Voldemort didn’t bother trying to hide his laughter.
“She was ugly anyway,” Dolohov muttered, glaring into his empty tea cup.
“Right,” Tom said sarcastically. “You found her absolutely hideous.”
Dolohov’s eyes snapped up to study Lord Voldemort. Tom raised his eyebrows under the scrutinous gaze, not sure if he ought to be impressed or offended. Antonin Dolohov was quickly becoming a highly skilled — one could even say dangerous — wizard. He might have a flirty, arrogant demeanor but that didn’t stop him from having the knowledge — and nerve — to get dirty. Tom knew the value of a wizard like Dolohov. He was pleased Tiberius had him as his assistant, and even more pleased he had been tasked with keeping an eye on Natalie. Antonin Dolohov reminded Tom of a well-trained Doberman Pinscher — if Tiberius, or even Natalie, asked him to kill someone on the spot, he would do so without hesitation.
“So,” Dolohov said slowly, and Tom knew he desperately wanted to know something. “You and Malfoy. . . .”
“Me and Malfoy,” he said, throwing boredom into his voice. “Which Malfoy are you referring to, exactly? We both know several.”
Dolohov bared his teeth in a grin. “The one we’re here for.”
“I had assumed you were here because of the Minister,” said Tom, finding it amusing to make Dolohov work for his answers. “The Minister of Magic is a Malfoy, I believe.”
“I, well, yes, but no — I mean — Natalie,” he finally flung the name out.
“Oh, that Malfoy.”
“Yes, that Malfoy,” said Dolohov, sitting up straighter in his chair. “Are you and her — you two — are you. . . .”
“Have you forgotten how to speak English, Antonin,” he smirked, though grew vaguely irritated when Dolohov placed his wand back on the table and started spinning it again.
“No,” Dolohov looked annoyed with himself. “I mean, are you two. . . you know. . . seeing each other?”
Lord Voldemort leaned forward to rest his arms on the table and look Dolohov in the eye. His wand immediately stopped spinning.
“I mean, last I heard you two were so I assume you still are,” he hastily added, and his leg began bouncing again. “Just wondering. . . .”
Voldemort sat back in his chair and gave Dolohov a wry grin, which he knew disconcerted the other wizard very much. “You’re in love with her, Antonin.”
“No,” Dolohov shook his head with a little too much fervor, “no, no, I’m not.”
“What’s it feel like?” he asked, keeping his voice casual but very much so interested in the answer.
“What’s, er, what’s what feel like?”
Voldemort waved a hand. “No need to deny it. We both know it. What’s it feel like. . . to be in love with Natalie Malfoy?”
Dolohov remained silent for a long moment, staring down at the table while his leg furiously bounced.
Finally Voldemort sighed, “can you stop that ridiculous habit?”
“What habit?” blurted Dolohov, as if he couldn’t help himself. “Being in love with Natalie?”
“No,” Voldemort laughed, “by all means, continue doing that. But stop shaking your leg as if you’re trying to stomp a hole in the floor.”
His leg froze. “Oh.”
“You haven’t answered the question.”
“Oh,” repeated Dolohov, now staring at a spot over Tom’s shoulder. “Well. . . her presence is. . . addicting, really. . . .” he continued upon seeing no change in Voldemort’s facial expression. “It’s like I never want to leave it. I could stay in it forever and feel. . . like I lived.”
“I see,” said Tom, disappointed with this answer.
“But. . . what do you mean?”
“Concerning what?”
“You said. . . continue, uh, being in love with her. . . .”
Lord Voldemort gave him a slight smile. “Your love is your loyalty, Antonin.”
Dolohov stared at him, saying nothing, but the flicker in his dark eyes told Voldemort that they both knew he was correct in stating this.
“Which is useful,” continued Tom, “seeing as my girlfriend insists on landing herself in increasingly absurd situations. . . loyalty is what she — we — need right now.”
Dolohov went to respond but Tom raised a hand and stopped him in his tracks, nodding towards the doors of the tea room, where two familiar faces had just appeared. Adolphus Lestrange and Eric Dawson hurried towards their table.
“My mother says we can visit her at eleven-thirty,” said Lestrange as the two pulled up chairs to join them. “That’s when she’s scheduled to wake up.”
“Scheduled?” Tom narrowed his eyes, the word gave him a bad feeling.
“Yeah, they knocked her out to bring her here from the U.S.,” explained Lestrange, dropping a copy of The Daily Prophet on the table. “And then didn’t bother waking her up while they made sure she wasn’t going to die again.”
“Smart move,” muttered Dolohov, shaking off his nerves with the arrival of the others.
“You lot hear Finland beat New Zealand?” asked Dawson, practically wiggling in excitement. “England versus Finland on August fifth. I’ve already made sure I’ll get a ticket to the top box.”
“Is your daddy getting it for you?” Dolohov teased.
“Is the Minister getting you yours?” Dawson fired back and Dolohov sneered.
“He might be.”
“Well, my dad is getting me mine,” Lestrange ruined the joke and tapped the cover of the Prophet. “You lot see this morning’s paper?” The front page was taken up by a moving black and white photograph of the American stadium, showing the tornado sweeping around the stands while miniature players darted all around the page and lightning flashed above. The headline was in all bold, declaring, “England Twists Through the U.S. and onto the Cup Final” followed in a smaller font with the date that Cup Final tickets would go on sale.
“Avery wrote this,” said Lestrange, flipping the paper open to read directly from the article. “In a lightshow match, the English national team knocked the United States out of the run for the 1946 Quidditch World Cup yesterday afternoon-”
“Boring!” groaned Dawson, slumping in his chair. “Get to the part where it says Natalie died and came back to life and all that stuff the Healers don’t want to talk about.”
“It doesn’t just say that,” said Lestrange with an eye-roll. Dolohov reached over and grabbed the paper from him, jumping to the part Dawson wanted to hear.
“Natalie Malfoy out-flew American Seeker, Sally Jackson, to nab the Snitch in the middle of a thunderstorm, securing a spot in the World Cup for England. . . Eric’s right, this is bloody boring,” Dolohov dropped the paper to the table and started bouncing his leg again.
“Of course it is,” Lestrange snatched the paper back up. “Why would they print anything about how she died?”
“Because it’s exciting,” Dawson said under his breath.
“Can’t wait for you two to see her,” said Lestrange, adopting a high-pitched voice to mock them. “Hi, princess! Glad to see you’re alive, would you mind giving us a play-by-play of how your heart stopped? We just think it’d be fun to hear!”
“Antonin, stop,” said Voldemort, giving him a glare. Dolohov sheepishly smiled, pausing his nervous tic. Lestrange and Dawson looked between them in confusion. Tom didn’t feel a need to explain how incredibly annoying Dolohov could be when he was bored and anxious. The others began chattering on about something, but Tom grew distracted by a funny feeling in the back of his head that he was now very familiar with. His eyes flew towards the doors to the tea room and Natalie, looking very pale and confused, and wearing a bathrobe that looked just like her Quidditch robes, stepped in. She spotted them immediately, tugged the robe’s hood over her head and made a beeline towards their table.
His muscles tensed as he watched her approach. The others hadn’t noticed her arrival, and he had a feeling she was definitely not supposed to be wandering around the hospital, especially in the tea room on the fifth floor. Sneaking over to the group, she shoved the teacups, the copy of the Prophet, and Dolohov’s wand from the table and settled herself cross-legged onto it, surprising the other three. Tom himself was also surprised, not from her sudden appearance, but from the fact that while he could certainly see her in front of him, he could not feel her. This kindled a hot anger in his gut, as though one of his possessions had been snatched right out of his hands.
“What the bloody fuck!” exclaimed Dolohov, leaping to grab his wand from rolling away on the floor. The tea cups had not shattered, instead they floated gracefully down to the floor as if they’d been charmed to do just that when thrown.
Dawson scooted his chair back in shock as Lestrange’s jaw dropped. “What are you doing?”
“Sitting,” she said. Her voice was raspy and contained a trace of raw anger, she looked around at them all until she met his eyes. He had to control the shiver that wanted to race down his spine. Her eyes looked empty, almost completely blank — he understood why he could not feel her usual bubbling presence. Tom felt his anger morph straight into rage. He wanted to get out of the bloody hospital as soon as he could, and he wanted to take her with him, now. Dolohov’s bouncing leg suddenly made much more sense, and he found himself adopting the same nervous tic.
“You’re not even supposed to be awake yet,” hissed Lestrange, checking his watch and then looking all around the tea room as though expecting to be scolded. Only the elderly witches were shooting disapproving looks at Natalie for sitting on the table.
Natalie turned away from Tom and leaned toward Lestrange. She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him so their faces were inches apart. Voldemort watched fear dash across Lestrange’s face. She whispered her next words, but they all heard them clear as day.
“The last thing I remember is trying to catch the Snitch. Next thing I know, I’m in an empty hospital ward. How the fuck did I end up here, did we fucking win, and what are you all doing in the tea room like a bunch of old women?”
This was news to all four of them. Tom had assumed she would have at least remembered catching the Snitch. Her anger suddenly made much more sense — which did not reassure him in the slightest.
Dolohov, Lestrange, and Dawson all shot looks over at him, as though wondering how these questions ought to be addressed. Tom moved to stand, because something about the situation was threatening to turn messy, but Natalie let go of Lestrange and snatched up the copy of the Prophet.
“So we won,” she said slowly, flicking open the paper to read the article. “And I caught the Snitch. . . wait. . . I caught — wait — holy shit there was a tornado — that absolute bitch Sally Jackson, she was so nosy — but how. . . .” she dropped the paper and studied the tea room. None of them dared speak, as though it would ruin something. With a slight popping of his ears, Tom’s skin started crawling; from the way the others shifted about, he knew they were feeling the same thing. It was as if her energy was slowly ramping up, like it had been switched off and was now finally turning back on. This should have relieved him, but for some reason, it gave him the unpleasant feeling of disaster looming.
“St. Mungo’s,” she said as if finally realizing something that had been bothering her for a while. “St. Mungo’s. . . .”
“Hey, princess,” said Lestrange in a soft voice, as though speaking to a frightened animal, “you. . . you were unconscious-”
“Yes, I know that,” she snapped and rolled off the table, landing with surprising ease for someone who had been considered dead. Dolohov’s jaw dropped and Dawson flinched backwards.
“You do?” all four of them asked at the same time.
“Shut up,” she said and looked around the tea room again. Tom had the sudden urge to grab her and pull her out of the hospital before she voiced that exact desire. “I need to get out of here.”
“You’re not even supposed to be awake,” Lestrange began, but Natalie had already shot off towards the door. Voldemort wasted no time in pursuing her, the three others on his heels.
The corridor outside the tea room was empty when they burst out into it.
“Where’d she go?” asked Dolohov in astonishment. “She can’t have disapparated, there’s an enchantment-”
But Tom had caught a glimpse of blustery gray fur round the corner at the end of the hall and took off. They followed the clouded leopard into the staircase and barrelled down several flights until reaching the floor with the reception area, with a lot of complaining and exclamations from Lestrange, Dolohov, and Dawson.
“My mum’s gonna be so mad,” groaned Lestrange. “And then blame me for this.”
“Why are we chasing a wild animal?” Dolohov asked cluelessly.
“How is she moving so fast?” huffed Dawson, “she bloody died-”
The miniature leopard shot out onto the bottom floor and ran through the reception room, darting under the legs of various witches and wizards. They followed, dodging around ailing people with much more difficulty. Lestrange and Dawson nearly collided with a wizard who had cacti as arms, letting out an explosion of swears as they narrowly avoided the prickly thorns. Tom remained ahead of the others, stepping out of St. Mungo’s through the magical glass window just behind the tiny leopard. She transformed back mid-leap and so when they appeared on the Muggle street outside of St. Mungo’s, Natalie made eye contact with him and he managed to grab hold of her sleeve before she disapparated away on the spot.
The two of them landed on the grounds of the Irish mansion she had not been to in some months now. It looked serene and untouched. A flock of crows pecked at the ground just below the imposing columns of the front entryway and a soft breeze brought a hint of spring warmth. The crows immediately took flight upon their appearance, and Lord Voldemort knew the placid atmosphere was not long for this world.
Natalie dropped to the grass at his feet and let out a groan. “Where is everyone and what is happening?”
“St. Mungo’s,” he said, crouching down to see her better. Color was rapidly returning to her cheeks. “Where you’re supposed to still be unconscious.”
She looked up at him, gray eyes darting between his gaze. Streaks of silver flickered within them. “We won, though, right?”
“Yes,” he said, she closed her eyes and sighed in relief, swaying slightly until she fell against him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her, shivering as her energy rolled through him like a slow tidal wave. They remained in silence for what felt like hours, until the gentle breeze deadened and his hair started standing on end. He quickly glanced upwards to eye the dark, low-hanging clouds.
“What happened?” she whispered.
He needed several moments to think about his response. The energy crawling through her and into him demanded all his attention — and it was steadily growing.
“They aren’t certain,” he said slowly, “they claim your heart stopped and you died.”
She pulled away and gave him a suspicious look, tugging out the ring around her neck and swinging it around in front of him. “I thought you couldn’t die. What are you doing here then?”
“Your heart stopped briefly,” he clarified, grabbing her hand to stop her from wildly swinging his horcrux all about like some sort of toy. A wild bolt of energy zinged up his arm when he did so, making his breath catch in his throat. “So they said. You’re not dead now.”
“Oh,” she said, eyes shooting open. She scrambled to her feet, dragging him up with her and let out a scream that echoed all over the grounds of the isolated estate and flattened the grass within her immediate vicinity. “Oh! Oh, my God!”
“What?” he demanded, trying to keep a hold on her but she was wriggling all about in excitement. She turned and skipped over to the stone stairway that led up to the mansion, then looked back at him as though he had just given her the best news of her life.
“We’re going to the World Cup!” she announced with the most glee he’d ever seen expressed in anyone. But her eyes widened and she flung a finger towards him. “Oh my God!”
“What?” he demanded again. The very air seemed to be turning frenzied and lawless, he found himself getting caught up in the waves of energy that were rushing off of her —they now felt supercharged — and still growing.
“You. . . your feeling!” she exclaimed, “Remember? You must not have wanted me to play because you knew I was gonna die!”
He stared; her eyes were the widest he’d ever seen them. The wind picked up with a sudden gust, blowing his robes all about but not moving a hair on her head. Concern slipped into the back of his intoxicated brain. “I didn’t know that, I didn’t know you were going to die.”
“Do you have Seer blood in you at all?” she asked, walking back towards him and studying him as though he was an interesting school assignment. She even grabbed his hand and peered at the veins on the back of his palm as though they held an answer. He had to close his eyes for a moment upon the contact — it was as if he was struck by some powerful, overwhelming curse, his heart skipping several beats and his head buzzing as all his senses roared at him. His vision turned fuzzy and something deep within his gut screamed at him to run as far away as he could.
He had to pull his hand from hers and take a few steps away from her to think clearly. The action made her freeze. She stared at him as if she was just seeing him for the first time that day. Then she started hysterically giggling to herself like some drunken agent of chaos.
“Go,” she said, her voice sounding very high-pitched. She stepped back and tripped on the stairs behind her. Falling backwards, she landed on the stairs with a yelp — and they disintegrated underneath her, turning to blackened sand as though they’d been struck with a curse. A scream of wind tossed the sand everywhere, forcing him to shield his eyes.
When he glanced back up, the grass around the stairs blew out as though reacting to some blast, before shriveling up to blackened crisps. Natalie had attempted to continue up the stairs but the same thing happened to the next step, it exploded into ruins and killed the surrounding green.
His ears popped so painfully, his head throbbed and nausea gripped him. The desire to run away moved to the front of his mind, but he was fascinated by what he was witnessing. The shrubbery on the grounds had been tossed up by its roots and was being flung about in the gale-force winds that had come out of nowhere. The sky had darkened further, lightning flashed above and Voldemort felt the distinct sensation of déjà vu flood through him — almost as if they were back at the Semi-Final match.
“Natalie!” he called out to her.
“Leave!” she yelled, turning to face him. When he met her eyes, he was struck by a sudden feeling of overflow, as though there was a little — or a lot — too much of something.
“Leave,” he repeated, the wind seemed to carry his words to her.
“Yes!” she insisted, sounding frantic as heavy raindrops started to fall. “Go — tell them, tell them I need to blow off steam. . . .”
Lord Voldemort was not quite sure how this made sense to him, but it did. With one last look at the growing tempest, he bent to the screaming instinct to run away and disapparated.