What Friends Are For
Henry pulled himself up from the nest he’d made in the middle of Camilla’s living room floor, having accepted when he got in yesterday that he definitely wasn’t going to have the energy to deal with stairs every day. When he heard the door open he knew that it would be the healer he’d called, having sent a discrete owl since he’d already gone through the torturous process of convincing Camilla not to drag him to St. Mungo’s or a nut house.
“Hey Emmeline,” he called tiredly, using her first name in some last-ditch effort to deny that he was being seen by a medical professional for a very real and life-threatening problem.
He hated that she was here. He hated that all of the concern she’d shown him on their first meeting ended up being founded, that his body’s collapse was inevitable and the pity he’d seen in her eyes wasn’t misplaced. He hated that he’d had to beg Camilla to go to work instead of being here for this. He hated that all he could think about was how he’d strangle someone with his bare hands just to get a hit of something to his system.
When she got to the room he couldn’t meet her eyes, running a hand through his bedhead and trying desperately not think about how she’d known Regulus, and how Regulus had had problems too, and how Regulus was dead now and Henry might be joining him soon.
@advance-emmeline