Family Line | Avryn

Thursday, November 22, 1923
7:00 PM

"I can't find this bloody book anywhere, and I'm starting to think it's behind that gate."

Avery had been in search of 'On Contagion: A Comprehensive Study of Magical and Mundane Infection' for the better part of a month now. Every shift, he'd check the return books, the sorts. It never turned up. On shifts like these, when he and Kathryn were on shelving duty, his eyes would scour the medical section, but it was yet to be found.

It wasn't a dangerous book, as far as Avery was concerned. It was on its third edition, released by St. Mungo's and available to the general medical population. Their index suggested the book was here, in the library somewhere, but every search had turned up fruitless. The boy had even ventured to ask Benji if he'd remembered stashing such a book in possibly the wrong area, as though the Hufflepuff's memory went further than his last meal.

Of course he didn't remember and he'd rudely told Avery to buzz off and leave him be.

How Kathryn and her brother had somehow been born of the same stock was a mystery that continued to perplex him.

"I need it. It's the only one where I can compare the symptoms and progression of tuberculosis against any known magical equivalents." He sighed, stopping the cart for a moment so he could lean against the shelf. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, pondering his predicament while letting Kathryn shelve.

If she chose to. It was hit or miss with her. Maybe she and her brother did have more in common.

"In any case, I've got Fiona Blackwood as my test subject right now. The last tincture I tried on her...didn't respond the way I thought it would." He sighed again. His research had been so thorough, his mixtures exact. He couldn't understand what had gone wrong. "Maybe I've got the wrong subject."

He stared at Kathryn expectantly.

Avery spoke less about sheep.

It was neither a good thing nor a bad thing, merely an observation Kathryn had made since their return to school. Instead, he spoke of illnesses and books and experiments. As she'd done the previous year, she listened, not particularly put off by the topic anymore than she was about the benefits of woollen bandages in place of cotton. Months in, it had already become part of the landscape they were curating for the new school year. In some ways, she was also curious about his experiments and what they might entail long term.

"I can't find this bloody book anywhere, and I'm starting to think it's behind that gate."

Icy blue eyes drifted from the cart of books they were returning to the metal gates that separated the Restricted Section from the rest of the library. There were many who spoke of the place with a degree of mysticism that had never held her. She knew what was in there, even if not title by title. Her mother had never thought that knowledge should be withheld from her. Becoming a student had been the thing to change some of that.

The little girl was no longer allowed to follow her mother wherever she went, whenever she went. There were rules and schedules that she was forced to acclimate to. Moving into second year, she was no happier about it but had come to accept that there was nothing she could do about it.

Apparently, there was nothing Avery could either.

"I need it. It's the only one where I can compare the symptoms and progression of tuberculosis against any known magical equivalents."

Have you checked the hospital wing? her quill scrawled lazily. It seemed to her that if the book were medical and the hospital wing had its own resources for students interested in moving into healing, then there was every chance the book might exist there under the watchful eye of the healer, where it could simply be borrowed then not returned.

Bloody savages.

The suggestion was his to take. She reached for the next book, ready to see what direction it would take them in when she caught the boy staring at her. The wrong subject. Kathryn cocked her head to the side, meeting his expectation with some of her own.

What?

Sheep were currently the least of his interests. Surprising it might seem for the boy who loved his family's lifestyle and the farm that encompassed the entirety of what home felt like, but there were more pressing matters to focus on.

When his father had been diagnosed, it had thrown a wrench into everything the family understood about themselves. Suddenly, his father couldn't do as much work around the farm, lest he wind himself and incur a coughing fit that caused his lungs to bleed. That left Cal, Avery and Leith to manage what they could while their mum cared for their dad. It had been a difficult summer to say the least.

Cal was only fourteen and Leith was ten. While the boys knew well how to care for the sheep and the rotation of the various fields, it had still been a difficult task, trying to keep a farm running when its patriarch could only watch from the porch. In a short time, Avery had watched his strong, capable father lose enough weight to alarm all of them, becoming frailer with each passing day.

There were muggle inoculations, but they were widely unavailable and even more ineffective.

Avery had considered not returning to school altogether, but he knew without access to Hogwarts' apothecary and greenhouses, his ability to create a treatment that actually worked was slim to none.

Have you checked the hospital wing?

Avery stopped, halting the cart with him as he raised an eyebrow at his friend. Really? Did she believe him to be that dim? "Of course I did," he answered with exasperation, "It was the first place I looked. It's not there. Someone's nicked it, or..." his eyes traveled back to the Restricted Section gate. "...it's back there."

He sighed as he resumed pushing the cart, the gears in his head turning with each step. He handed her a book, nodding for its place along the shelving. She'd asked what. He didn't imagine she'd want to actually consider it, but he was running out of choices here.

"Maybe you can help me," he said slowly, trying to make his voice as diplomatic and not desperate as possible. "Maybe you could ask your sister - err Morgan," he remembered how sensitive she was about the whole Barlowe situation, "if she could get us access to the Restricted Section."

He paused, lifting his gaze to hers again. "And...maybe you'd wanna let me test some of my tinctures on you?"

His exasperation was both noted and unwarranted. It wasn't outside the realm of common sense to assume that a medical book might be in a medical place, especially when he'd established that it wasn't there in the library.

He was frustrated. Her mother had even suggested that some of the times when he grew short, it wasn't because he had become less tolerant of her but because he'd grown more terrified of what might happen to his father. On some level, she understood. It must have been horrible to have someone you love be sick without knowing what might happen to them. Kathryn herself would've been out of her mind had the tables been turned and her own mother wound up with such a frightening disease. She didn't know if she 'sympathised' with the boy per se... but it did make her more patient in the moments like this where he tried to look at her as if she shared the lukewarm intelligence of many of their peers.

Frankly, they would soon have to saint her if his father never got better because she could only see him getting worse.

"...it's back there."

It felt like it was meant to be ominous, but all Kathryn could see was the metal gate that had clanked open for her so many times. She didn't have a key, but she wasn't under the same impression that gaining access would be difficult.

"Maybe you can help me."

Wasn't she already? The little girl took the book he offered without protest, placing it onto the shelf so they could continue on with their shift. She could've handed it back to him, reminded him she wasn't his assistant, asked him what she looked like. She did none of those. Was this not already helpful to him? Was he not less occupied as a result of her being present?

"Maybe you could ask your sister - err Morgan, if she could get us access to the Restricted Section."

She's not my sister.

Kathryn had none of those.

And it wouldn't matter anyway. She shares a braincell with Evander. Mr. Maddox said so himself. The last time she tried helping me, Julia yelled at her and she gave in. Ask Ruth.

"And... maybe you'd wanna let me test some of my tinctures on you?"

That got one brow arching in her otherwise impassive expression. Tinctures she knew about. She often watched him brew them. He wanted to try them... on her? Silence engulfed them for a prolonged moment, the girl not inclined to immediately reply, and her quill steeped in its own reticence.

They both had experiments, though their interests deviated significantly. The concept wasn't strange to her, she supposed.

Alright The quill paused. And you'll help me with something.

Yeah, he knew good and well how Kathryn felt about her sister and brothers - or rather all the ones that weren't Benji. He didn't pretend to understand what her hang up was about having siblings, and why she insisted so feverishly that Morgan and the two little ones that ran around the place weren't hers. In her place, if Avery had to disown any of them, it would definitely be the Hufflepuff whose brain had taken up permanent residence in his backside.

And it wouldn't matter anyway. She shares a braincell with Evander. Mr. Maddox said so himself. The last time she tried helping me, Julia yelled at her and she gave in. Ask Ruth.

"That's...not a thing, Kathryn." Avery raised another eyebrow to meet the first as he shook his head, almost pitying the girl as he blinked slowly at her. Good gravy. "But yeah, if she's easy to break, she's probably not the one we want." And Ruth wouldn't be any help. Despite how rabid she seemed to be, the girl took rules and her role as head library assistant and volunteer nurse seriously.

Avery really needed to make friends in the right places, with people who didn't care about the rules. He didn't necessarily want to ingratiate himself with criminals, but he couldn't deny that when he needed something done, they were the most likely to assist him.

Even if they expected something in return.

He sighed, realizing he'd likely have to find a way to break into the Restricted Section on his own account. There was no way that Professor Barlowe - the lady one - was going to help him. He was fairly certain she already held a healthy suspicion of him, and rightfully so, he mused.

Alright.

Alright? She'd let him? Color the boy skeptical, but he didn't entirely believe Kathryn Barlowe was gnashing at the bit to swallow unidentified potions for his amusement.

And you'll help me with something.

There it was. His eyes rose from the quill to meet the deep blue of his friend. "And what could you possibly want from me?" She'd already seen how useless he was in a fight.

"That's... not a thing, Kathryn."

It was of no consequence to her.

Did Kathryn really believe that members of a family could share a singular brain cell between them? Of course not. She was twelve and rather sensible. It did, however, seem an apt description for what she'd witnessed around the home and even at school. It aligned with what she'd heard and what she knew. She was often told that Evander was only a baby and didn't know better, but it seemed to her that at nearly 4, he should've had more common sense than he did. That he didn't only confirmed outside of her scientific mind that he must be outsourcing his intelligence and that the source couldn't have been much better.

Having no real conviction on the matter, Kathryn simply let the point die. It didn't matter whether that was the way it worked; it was the story that best helped her satisfy an explanation for the people around her. That was good enough for her.

"But yeah, if she's easy to break, she's probably not the one we want."

For the second time, she wondered why he didn't simply ask her mother. Julia believed in knowledge and having access to it. With the exception of the book they'd caught her reading over the summer – no, not caught; she hadn't been sneaking to begin with – her mother had never recoiled from allowing her to read to her heart's content. There were times when the thing they needed came directly from the restricted section. She was taught to handle them with care and to be responsible with the information. The one lesson she'd never been taught was that some things should be shunned – except that book.

There were plenty of books she'd sooner consider 'forbidden knowledge'. Crudely drawn annotations on the margin of a manual hardly fit the bill.

Avery would figure it out. Merlin knew he seemed wholly uninterested in her suggestions, so he could solve this one on his own and then come back and tell her about it after.

"And what could you possibly want from me?"

More often than not, Avery asked the right questions. It saved her a great deal of impatience that typically saw her avoiding any form of conversation with others. The scepticism was correct. There weren't many things she needed from the boy. Even her request wasn't born of need per se, but he'd made her an offer, and given the stakes, it didn't seem the sort of thing to be done for free when she could receive some help in return.

Kathryn took another book from the cart, scanning the shelves for its position.

My birds, the quill scrawled. Come with me after our shift is through and I'll show you.