No Cure For Curiosity | Avryn

Saturday, September 23, 1922
11:00 AM

"Okay, but all I'm saying is the wool wrappings are superior to linen," Avery debated as they followed around the resident healer, getting the lay of the land. As a volunteer in the hospital wing, he'd needed to be orientated, Ruth had said, and since she was busy tending to patients, the poor healer was stuck with the task.

"Wool keeps the body warm, it's hypoallergenic and antibacterial. It's why everyone prefers woolen clothing." They didn't, but the boy continued. "Linen's breathable, sure but wool is like a cozy hug that feels just like your own skin."

"Thank you Mister Hale for the information, but a debate is only interesting when both parties are engaged."

Avery raised an eyebrow in confusion, but sighed, dropping the subject as the healer indicated back to the perturbed looking boy sitting on the hospital bed. "He burned his arm in the kitchen - apparently trying to reach behind one of the cauldrons and caught himself on the edge." She looked between him and Kathryn - he shuddered - who had also apparently decided to work in the hospital wing in some capacity.

Maybe it was the idea of getting her hands on some preserved eyeballs. Avery was sure they probably had a stash around here somewhere.

"So, what do we do then? He burned it, but it doesn't look too bad. Not third-degree anyway." The boy leaned forward, probably closer than necessary to get a better look. "My brother, Cal, he once burned his hand on the stove when Mum was cooking his favorite - roast lamb with mint, really good. Anyway, he was too eager and he popped his hand right into the pan, not thinking and it got all blistered up and pus-filled." He nodded at the healer.

"Mum used wool wrappings, but you said you don't have those, so."

He glanced out the corner of his eye towards Kathryn, wondering if she or her quill had any suggestions.

Ruth signed her up for the hospital wing.

She was now a novice nurse.

There were other volunteers who sometimes asked her how she was enjoying her time during the week and how things were going for her. Not her brother's girlfriend. She never asked what she thought about it or whether she'd like to continue. Everything simply was. In many ways, Kathryn could appreciate that. She didn't have to think about whether she would show up or not; someone already told her she would. She didn't have to decide where she would be at 11 on a Saturday or 4 on a Friday. Her Thursdays at 7 were equally assigned.

The only real bump in the road? Avery had a few of those times himself.

It was a curious thing. The boy who'd imposed himself on her in Diagon Alley ended up in her house and thus her common room. He called her mother his head of house and shared the walk with her to every...single...one...of their classes. In all that time, he talked. Nervously, Kathryn thought, but he talked. There seemed to be no end to the inane things he could dig from the deepest recesses of his muggle farm knowledge, and today was no exception.

The little girl followed them quietly, only half listening while Avery explained the benefits of 'wool' wrappings when linen had been the established standard. There was no need to question, only a call to act.

If they said it was linen, then it was linen.

They wouldn't be acting though, not any time soon. If he'd stopped talking long enough, he might have known that. Novices didn't do the healing. They observed and aided those who did. They fetched things, cleaned things and learned the basics of diagnostics. They did not become either problem solvers or miracle workers. Not that that was what this required. This was far simpler.

She caught the boy looking at her from the corner of his eye.

He did that often, usually when he thought she wasn't looking and wouldn't notice. It wasn't...a normal look, but Kathryn didn't think she had the words for it either. Suspicious maybe. Anticipatory. Avery Hale sometimes looked like he was waiting for her to grow a second head, never mind how impractical such a feat would be. He was noticeably more nervous than he'd been during their encounter over the summer, yet always there with his rambles.

The girl could write an entire book on his farm and his brothers and his sheep were she so inclined, but there were no openings large enough in her schedule to facilitate that.

Burn healing paste.

Her quill wrote without fanfare.

They covered it not a week ago. Kathryn didn't lean in like Avery, nor did she show any particular interest in the student sitting on the bed. Her attention was on the one they followed through the wing, impassive blue oceans rarely blinking.

Seemed a waste on someone with a level of intelligence that suggested they'd only do the same thing again within the month, but the resources of the wing weren't hers to manage.

"Good, Kate!"

Kathryn.

"You've been paying attention. We do use burn-healing paste, but only after we...?" The volunteer looked between them expectantly as if trying to prompt the response out of either of them.

He watched as her quill neatly wrote out an answer, his cheeks burning with embarrassment as he realized...he knew that. He did. Despite his first few weeks being a little rocky, with plenty of the professors remarking that he chatted far too much to be doing any real listening, the boy absorbed nearly everything they said.

He'd just been so put out that the healer didn't seem to care at all about the merits of wool rather than the medieval tradition of linen wrappings that...he'd sort of lost his head a bit in it all. Scatterbrained, that's what his mum called it sometimes. He'd be so engrossed in the trees and the little details that he struggled to see the forest.

Burn paste. Right.

"Good, Kate!"

Avery bit the inside of his cheek, but otherwise remained quiet and polite. She did get the answer right. It wasn't her fault he'd been jabbering on so incessantly he'd forgotten what the correct procedure was.

"Good job, Kate," he echoed pursing his lips slightly as kept his eyes trained on the burned arm. A sore loser he wasn't, and he could recognize when someone had bested him.

Kathryn was equal parts terrifying and mesmerizing to the boy who couldn't help the fascination that still ran rampant within his brain. He still wanted to know about the gloves - that she was wearing in the hospital wing - not medicinal ones either. He still wanted to know about her mafia family, though he'd resolved to having to speak to Professor Barlowe - the lady one - about those specifics.

And...he kind of wanted to know about her non-living subjects, while absolutely not wanting to know at the same time.

A puzzle the girl was. One he planned to solve, even if he had to do it from a safe distance.

"You've been paying attention. We do use burn-healing paste, but only after we...?"

"Oh!" Avery suddenly lit up, all melancholy feelings of inferiority dashing out the window at the new opportunity to be a know-it-all. "Gently cool it with a freezing charm and depending on the severity of the burn, apply an antiseptic to prevent external infection. But for less severe burns, that's not typically needed."

He smiled up hopefully at the healer as he flicked his eyes back to Kathryn for a brief second. Redemption was hard-won, but the boy wasn't a quitter and had every intention of being the best novice nurse he could be.

"Then burn paste. And dress it. With linen." His smile grew slightly tighter. He obviously knew better than the healer when it came to that last little aspect, and he couldn't help but drive home his displeasure.

But he wasn't rude. Ewan Hale would have his hide if he knew his son was rude.

There he went again.

Kathryn waited for Avery to rattle off the procedure for simple and sometimes less simple burns. The little girl was neither fussed nor impressed, simply taking his input for what it was: relief from having to give the answer herself. It wasn't that she didn't know the answer herself but that she found the questions repetitive at times and tedious. If they wouldn't let her treat the burns, they could at least stop asking her about them.

"Good job, Kate." Avery repeated.

Kathryn.

Not for the life of her could she understand why so many chose to impose themselves with a level of familiarity she never consented to. In Diagon Alley, she had introduced herself to Avery Hale as 'Kathryn' before he slipped into his Tudor spiel about phonetics. She thought, given how deeply he'd chosen to dive, that he understood the simple concept of her name. The boy came to Hogwarts and quickly developed bad habits. They all had.

It was Benny's doing. For as many people as she was forced to introduce herself to – using the name Kathryn – her brother had nearly double as many to whom he introduced her as Kate.

"Right you are." He lightly ruffled Avery's hair, a thing he'd learned very quickly wasn't a gesture Kathryn appreciated with any degree of warmth. "I'm glad to see you're both paying attention. Who knows, you might be running the wing someday if Elliot ever dies. Bloody girl will probably graduate and then circle right back to make sure no one else gets it."

When neither laughed, the volunteer healer cleared his throat and continued.

"Ahem, moving on. We'll leave that to another volunteer. You both follow me to the back room. We've got sheets that won't be changing themselves."

It was, perhaps, her least favourite thing to do. Dirty sheets. They often smelled. Sometimes there were stains. Kathryn had needed an additional pair of gloves ordered by her mother just to be able to complete her duties in the hospital wing without going entirely out of her mind. Much like the gloves she used for her little projects, these served the purpose of getting soiled. Darker in colour, a little looser to lessen the sensations she felt through them. Always in her shoulder bag, ready to be donned the moment she walked in.

"One of you grab that cart there."

Avery would get the cart.

"We'll also be needing a pair of baskets."

Avery would get the baskets.

Kathryn remained where she stood, understanding what came next. They would collect the clean linen and wheel it back through the wing, stopping at any bed that needed changing. Avery would change the sheets. She would go over them, straightening what she considered inadequate work, spending a great deal of time fixing what she thought needed correction. Several volunteer healers had tried telling her it was unnecessary – that the sheets didn't need to be as straight and neat as she silently insisted.

She always pretended not to hear while she meticulously did what she thought Avery – or anyone else – couldn't.

Ruth was impressed, and she was in charge. Nothing else mattered.

The hair ruffle and praise was all the high Avery needed to ride the rest of the day. He beamed, momentarily, until the joke about Ruth dying was made. The boy cocked his head, not understanding how such a thing could be found as funny. He didn't find humor in people dying or hurting, even if it was the very bossy nurse. Did other healers find such things funny? Weren't they meant to be helping people, not making fun of -

Avery opened his mouth to sound off on the matter, but the volunteer healer was already ushering them towards chores.

Kathryn, true to form, continued to say nothing.

They'd be changing sheets. No big deal, Avery thought. He helped his mum with the laundry line all the time. Without a daughter, she'd complained, considering all her children had decided to bless her as boys, her three sons would have to do what was otherwise considered 'girl chores'.

He didn't see it as a problem.

"One of you grab that cart there."

Avery looked at Kathryn, who didn't move. "I guess I've got it," he said grabbing the cart.

"We'll also be needing a pair of baskets."

Again, Kathryn didn't move. He knew she was mute. He didn't know she'd grown deaf in the last five minutes. With an exasperated sigh, he chose two large baskets and plopped them on the cart. He eyeballed her for only a moment, before heading over to the laundry section and grabbing two big armfuls of clean sheets.

They'd been down this road recently. Avery would strip and redress the bed, while Kate would go behind him fussing over wrinkles and things that didn't matter. "You know," he quipped as he pushed the cart back towards the patient area, "You might make a great soldier someday, if they ever let women in the military." He looked at her for a moment to ensure she was following. "They have strict rules on chores and stuff. Have to make your bed immaculately and your uniform always needs to be pressed perfectly."

He'd know. His uncle had been a military man before he'd got half his arm shot off in the Great War. Kathryn would probably love to hear about that and what was done with the arm after. He didn't know, figured it was rotting somewhere in France, so he decided not to bring it up.

Stopping at the first bed, he took hold of the edge of the sheet and pulled it from beneath the mattress. "They're pretty quiet and steely like you are." An observation, not a judgment. "Bet you'd make general or something."

She'd certainly instill fear in all her subordinates.

Kathryn waited patiently by the older volunteer's side as Avery collected everything they would need. Cart and basket. Check. There were many things one could say about Avery Hale; some of them unflattering, many of them neutral, a few of them puzzling. When it came to the hospital wing, he was a puppy who chased praise and a boy who liked a spot of hard work. She'd heard him from time to time – how could she not when inches from her ears was his favourite spot from which to orate? – talking about the work he did on the farm and all the ways he helped around the house.

He must've told the common room a million times now about the days he tended the sheep and the proper way to treat wool.

Kathryn was certain to develop a wool allergy by the time they graduated, and the boy would walk away happy, none the wiser to the impact he'd had on her immune system. But yes, he was industrious if not a bit sloppy in her opinion. There was no need to fetch when he was so proficient and willing. Instead, she followed as he began to lead on the way back to the beds that needed their attention.

"You know, you might make a great soldier someday."

A...soldier...?

"If they ever let women in the military."

So he did know. There was no need to correct him on the impossibility of the matter. Good. The little girl listened to him go on about the military and its expectations, mildly concerned that he thought one needed to go to war to know how to have a bed properly spread. Similarly, Kathryn thought it strange that Avery thought one needed to be maimed in order to understand the basic principle of a clean, neatly pressed uniform. Subconsciously, blue eyes flickered over the boy, looking him up and down to see whether he'd been walking around with wrinkly clothes the entire time. Had she simply never noticed how unkempt he was?

It didn't seem the case, though his hospital wing uniform could use a bit of flattening in places. She reached out, her fingers moving with some determination to smooth out a wrinkle that had offended her.

"They're pretty quiet and steely like you are."

...Steely?

It took her several seconds to realise the way Avery was undoing the sheets, too caught up in the descriptor he'd chosen for her that day. Steely. Was she steely? She didn't think she was—

What was he doing?

Kathryn took him by the sleeve, directing him to the other side of the bed. That was the side they removed sheets from first. He must've been too distracted to remember this arbitrary rule she'd convinced herself existed. When he didn't move quickly enough, she tugged him to the other side herself then moved to retuck the sheet where he'd removed it. He could begin again. They would do this correctly.

And while they were at it.

I'm not steely.

Whatever that was meant to mean.

The tug at his sleeve distracted him, and he glanced up, soft blue eyes meeting her hardened ones. What - what was she doing...? Oh. Avery huffed, tugging his arm out of her grasp as she led him to the other side of the bed. It was the same thing she did every time. She needed to remove the sheets from this side of the bed, not the other.

He watched, unamused as she tucked the sheet back into the corner he just tugged it from. Annoyance filled the boy, not understanding what difference it made if the sheet was removed from the left corner first or the right. Some would likely just give in, wanting to pick their battles or not choosing sheets as their hill to die on.

Avery was not those people.

Stubbornness ran through his veins as thickly the blood within them. He was a farmer's son, made of grit and determination, despite his more cerebral tendencies, and this often showed in his tenacity to be the best and most hard-working amongst his peers. It also raised its ugly head whenever Kathryn thought herself to be the boss of him.

Well, despite her princess posture, Avery wasn't one to bow and deflect to a glove-donned prissy mute.

Without a word he moved back to the side of the bed he'd been dismissed from, and keeping his eyes locked on hers, he snatched the sheet from the corner she'd just tucked it back into. He jutted his lips at her, eyes widening in challenge.

I'm not steely.

"Well, whatever you are," Avery huffed as he moved quickly, ripping the sheep in one quick yank from the rest of the bed before she could try and correct him, "That's what a general is." But there was no place for it here, in the Hospital Wing, when there were chores that needed to be done quickly.

"Grab the clean sheet," he instructed her, his voice even and unbothered, despite how bothered he felt. He balled the dirtied one up and dumped it onto the bottom rack of the cart to drop off at the laundry chute. He doubted she would listen, but if she didn't, then he'd just complain to the healer. Enough complaints and she'd be ousted from the wing altogether, making his life much more peaceful, he imagined.

Avery Calder Hale was a barbarian of the highest order.

Kathryn watched, her face reddening with indignation and a frustrating sense of helplessness as the boy moved by her to entirely rip the sheet off the bed. He could've ripped it – they weren't exactly made of the thickest fabric – but she doubted the boy who had consciously made the decision to act like a blockheaded Gryffindor would be concerned about such details. Avery had never given the impression of being a brute, seeming to do the bulk of his menacing with his mouth.

This was a clear escalation.

Violent. He was likely violent. Il-tempered. Poorly regulated. Lacking self-control. The huff was the first warning; the force of his defiance was the shot fired.

"Grab the clean sheet."

Kathryn stiffened at the instruction, her blue eyes sharpening and her expression hardening at the commander general who sought to give her orders when he didn't even know how to correctly remove sheets from a bed without resorting to aggression. She stared at him unblinking, her hands clasped before her, her legs meeting at her ankles and knees and her back perfectly straight.

She was not his lapdog and didn't answer to him.

Kathryn wasn't a defiant child by any means, but she did not appear at the beck and call of other children. The drive within her to do as she was told, to fight less, and to surrender was not triggered by those of a similar age with emotional regulation impediments and motor mouths that only ever seemed to spill the most inane things.

Instead, Kathryn walked by him to the sheet he'd so carelessly tossed into the basket – a slob in real life. She could only imagine his dorm must have been the same. Crumpled sheets. Things thrown about.

Avery Hale was likely some form of deviant. Aunt Edith had warned her about that sort. They would be the ruin of good and decent English society.

It started with sheets.

She reached for the sheet, spreading it along the floor before carefully gathering the sides. Each time she did, it came smaller and smaller until it was neatly folded into a square. She placed it back inside the basket that now had room for the others because one sheet was no longer sprawled and taking up most of it. Not interested in further aggravation, Kathryn wordlessly moved to another bed to strip those sheets. When Avery was done with what he called 'bed making', she would revise his work and fix it then.