sfaithlvss:
he objected. clearly. but he had been in the room when her magic hadn’t worked. that’s what he was thinking of now.
the gut-wrenching desperation in her voice. it had cut through the silence like a knife. and he could not– he would not– ever understand why someone who believed so adamantly that they were in the right would want to put that pain on anyone else.
“it’s a trade you have to make. for dragons, you might need a specific variant. but it might work for other things. things that don’t spit poison or fire.”
there were proposals he had– for certain, a rune to bind the organs of flame creation, the use of other protective gear to extinguish the fires. however, he said none of them, allowed the conversation to lapse back into silence as he stared at her arm. by the time, he looked up to meet molly’s gaze, he wasn’t thinking about the freezing spell at all.
“it’s a judgment call,“ he said finally, though his voice was shaky, “that’s why there’s usually teams of people to decide the ethics of a spell before widespread implementation.sure, stunning is cruel. but, in the end, magic doesn’t give anyone much a choice in anything.” he turned over his own wand in his hand, “in some ways, it’s all cruelty.”
he looked at where she was pointing in the notebook, read the line she had jabbed at and promptly stiffened.
”that’s a defense spell,” he said finally, the meaning behind the innocuous words unsaid but apparent. you said it yourself, molly, we’re on opposite sides. i may have initiated the armistice, but i didn’t think we were going to talk about anything we could really use.
though, he shifted uncomfortable, the seed of an idea for the charm already sprouting in his thoughts, i want to. i really really want to.
“you didn’t-” he cleared his throat, feigning disinterest out of politeness, offering her the chance to change the topic, “you didn’t mean to talk about anything else?”
“i know what classifies a defense spell, funnily enough,” molly spit, getting a little tired of the pretense. “and i just --” want to talk someone who understands my pain. want to focus on something other than my injury, for a change. want to protect my family -- maybe at any cost. maybe in a way that will make them never trust me again.
she had a lengthy list of folks she knew could obliviate cress if they made any breakthroughs with the charm, before he could teach his death eater friends. half of them shared her last name.
“i know it’s only been a few weeks, but this kind of spell damage...” the young witch flexed the fingers of her left hand a bit, unable to open her hand completely without the muscles and tendons seizing and snapping the digits back together and onto her palm. “has made me reconsider wand use for the time being. i’m not a healer. but i could maybe -- with this...armour charm, i can help prevent this sort of thing from happening to anyone else.” the extended weasley family especially.
molly closed her notebook and glanced at her watch. dinner was soon, and the girl was eager to see her sister. “help me or not, cress, that’s fine -- it just might be more of an intellectual challenge for you than sucking up to gemma gamp.”
