The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Such Names

Such Names

Lydia McGregor had not moved from her spot beside Dougal's bed, where she sat, clutching a wood rosary, worrying the beads through her fingers without really saying much of a prayer. Somehow the simple act of moving them through her hands felt like prayer enough - if the God she prayed to heard her, he already knew her inquiry, she reckoned, and so she simply stared at Dougal and worried. Dougal's eyes had not yet opened, his skin pale, his lips a funny shade - almost blue. Lydia shivered from cold and fear.

Suddenly, there was a commotion in the hallway outside the room and Lydia looked up and saw several nurses rush by and, far off, she heard the sound of a barking dog.

A dog? In a hospital!? She thought, I never!

Another nurse ran past the door as the dog's barking got louder.... And louder.... And then a flash of unruly black fur and a wagging tail went past the room, followed by now four... no, five... nurses.

Lydia stood up and went to the door to investigate, her rosary hanging about her wrist, where she'd tangled it like an overlarge bracelet. She stuck her head into the hall and looked after the way the dog had gone.

"Hullo Mrs. McGregor."

She turned and saw the presbyterian reverend coming up behind her - Malcolm McGonagall. She quickly stowed her rosary into her pocket. "Reverend," she greeted him, and she smiled as Halley McGonagall, the reverend's wife, stepped 'round him, their three year old daughter on her hip. "Mrs. McGonagall," she added, nodding to her.

Halley smiled, "Morning, Mrs. McGregor," she replied.

Malcolm hugged Lydia gently, patting her back, and murmured, "I can as soon as I heard. How is he?"

Lydia had no idea that the reverend had any part at all in getting Dougal to the Caithness hospital. "They think it was some sort of... of gang or something... a mugging, they're saying... said he was drinking at the pub again." She wiped her eyes, "He'd been clean so long but... something made him start again a couple months ago and he's been hitting it hard since." She looked down, "They say he cannot be healed."

Down the hall, the dog's barking continued and the nurse's station stood unoccupied.

Halley McGonagall wrapped her arms about Lydia's shoulder as the woman began to cry.

The Reverend looked toward the bed in the room and he suggested, "P'haps you'd like to have a moment of prayer... Halley, could you take our dear Lydia to the chapel room to pray together? He said, turning to his wife.

Lydia looked nervous, "Oh... I... I don't know, I don't want him to be alone... if he wakes up... and..."

"I'll sit with him," Malcolm promised.

Lydia looked rather as though she were unsure what she'd just agreed to - but she followed Halley away down the hall and as they went, Malcolm heard her ask, "Did you see that dog that's gone by just now?"

He waited until Halley had gotten Lydia 'round the bend at the end of the long corridor, then he turned 'round and called, "Min!"

Minerva McGonagall stepped out from the waiting room off the hall that she had been waiting in and walked down the hallway toward Malcolm, her heart in her throat. The muggle hospital smelled of soap and illness and she fretted, rubbing her hands together, hating the dismal feeling in the place. St. Mungo's had enchanted that sort of traditional hospital smell away, and it always felt more hopeful than muggle establishments felt.