Checking In

Henry was ready and she nodded at him in response, as he took his place next to her. She pushed the door open and stepped out into the sterile looking hallway, immediately taking on an air of importance and nonchalance. It was strange how deceptive the once coldly honest girl had become. It was all the time spent outside of Hogwarts in the real world, she thought, that had forced her to be a terribly dishonesty human being. If she could deny her family and shirk her name, it was easy enough to pretend to be a Healer.

She clutched the clipboard and beckoned that he should follow. She walked with purpose, neither making eye contact nor averting her own gaze as she walked down the hallway, reaching the stairs. The stairs seemed a safer plan than the lifts, where she could easily be questioned by those riding between floors. As she was going down the stairs, she passed another Healer. The blonde Healer gave her a shrewd look but said nothing. On the second flight of stairs, they passed another.

"Alright?" Lily asked.

"Yeah - coffee's out."

"Ah, mate."

"Yeah."

"Well you have a good day."

"Yeah, you too."

Lily tried not to smile to herself, but she felt very accomplished in her ability to lie and lead their way through the high security hospital. However, this pride kept her from rethinking the next part of her plan. How was she supposed to casually walk a patient out the front door? They had just come into the reception room when this problem came to a head.

"STOP THEM."

Lily looked back and saw the blonde Healer from the stairs. She cursed under her breath and muttered, "Checking out early." She grabbed Henry's hand and sprinted for the exit.

Henry didn't look where Lily was guiding him he simply kept his head down and eyes to the floor. A small conversation was heard but Henry didnt really listen he just let himself be guided until they reached a larger room. This had to be reception, there was a welcome desk, a few witches and wizards in a lone queue and-

"STOP THEM."

Someone shouted from somewhere behind them and soon Lily was running full pelt towards the exit. Glancing over his shoulder he saw a blonde witch in the same lime green healer robes as Lily following them. She was accompanied by an entourage of security wizards who were aiming their wands at the pair.

'Down!' Henry cried, pushing Lily onto the floor and out of the way as a spell whizzed through the space they were moments ago only to hit a warty men who was instantly bound in chains.

Withdrawing his own wand Henry aimed it at the ceiling ahead of the blonde witch and the security squad.

'Expulso' He yelled, not looking Henry crawled towards where he'd pushed Lily onto the floor to avoid the spell. The sound of an explosion and shaking of the room told Henry his plan had worked.

Turning his eyes on the scene behind him he watched as the ceiling tiles started to fall from above. People were screaming, patients were covered in rubble and a pipe had burst spraying the security guards with water.

'We need to go.' He muttered in horror. Not only would he be forced to remain in this hospital craving a high he'd be in the security wing, maybe placed before the wizengamot. That certainly wouldn't make Scorpius happy.

This was the last thing Lily had wanted. She had hoped to just walk out of the hospital without detection, getting him out without getting any attention drawn onto them. Lily was trying to lay low, and risking all of this for a bit of a high was a bit stupid of her, now that she thought the whole thing through. She should have kept going. She should not have come to Mungo's, or if she had, she should have not let herself become distracted. Now she had tons of trouble and no Wolfsbane. Good job.

Henry pushed her down - something she did appreciate at all. She fell and covered her head as spells flew above her. She did not think she would be recognized in the stolen robes. She looked up, seeing rubble and other dangerous shrapnel rain upon the scene. For a moment, time slowed down. She could pick apart the separate players, the spells rebounding this way and that, the symptoms of each of said spells. And then Lily knew how to act.

She pushed herself up and ran towards Henry. She threw her arms around her and turned.

CRACK!

They appeared in the Shrieking Shack. Lily held tight for a moment, though the danger was over, just to make sure they really were safe.

Henry had felt Lily grasp hold of him, spin around and apparate from the hospital. Whether it was official or not Henry doubted he'd ever be able to get treatment from there again. Had he been banned? Had the healers alerted the department of magical law? Already he'd been in trouble, accused of torturing Hallie Rookwood and holding her hostage. That was true. No doubt this would only strengthen her argument against him. Now there were additional eye witnesses of his crazy antics and violent nature. Wonderful. Scorpius would be most pleased.

What was his life to be now? A life living on the run? In all honesty the idea seemed more favourable than attended the trial knowing he'd probably be sent straight to Azkaban. Yes. Being a fugitive certainly did seem the better options of the two. For starters he could simply stay here, wherever he was, with Lily and get high all the time. It wasn't the life he'd planned, it wasn't a life on the Quidditch Pitch but it was what his life now had become. A life in...

Opening his eyes and taking in his surroundings Henry realised he was in the shrieking shack. There was a hole in the living room ceiling where Maura Goldstein had fell through the year bear and the wooden beams were singed and blackened from a fire that had burnt it almost down to the ground. It was a horrible scene. Moth eaten curtains, carpets of dust and fragments of wood were the standout features of the ancient building. Would the ministry think to look here? Hopefully not. Hopefully it was all in his head, his theory they were out to get him. Hopefully. Probably not.

Pulling away from Lily he headed over to a nearby table, pulled out a chair and sat down. Giving a harsh blow dust fluttered from the table, with the help of Henry's hand, and the death eater placed the brown bag before him on the table before turning to glance over his shoulder at Lily.

'Are you ready?' He asked. Really he should have said thank you, perhaps if he wasn't having withdrawal symptoms he would have. Then again if he wasn't falling from a high Henry wouldn't have had to fight to escape from St Mungo's in the first place.

Henry released her and she stumbled back, glancing at him in confusion. He was taking in the Shrieking Shack like one would look at the scene of a crime. There was evidently a lot that Lily did not know about her friendly Borgin and Burkes shop clerk, and now she was utterly alone with him. Sure, they had been alone before, but anyone could have seen from the outside of Knockturn, or in the corridor of St. Mungo's. But here, the closest person was a half-mile away, maybe even a full mile away. If he decided to suddenly turn on her...

Lily had a bad habit of getting her in these situations, did she not? It was the Potter blood in her, apparently.

She swallowed and turned away, taking in the view of the shack. She knew that werewolves used to use the shack to transform in, but as she took it in, it seemed so illogical a choice. The wood looked rotten, almost burnt through, and all of the furniture was on the verge of collapse. She felt like one uncontrolled transformation would take down the entire building.

She looked back at Henry, to see he was setting up for their pleasures. She glanced at him and then nodded, slowly approaching, before throwing herself into a chair.

Noticing that Lily had joined him Henry upturned the brown paper bag and let the spice fall out onto the slightly chewed table. Spice was different than sugar, at first he had been clueless as to what to do but his instincts had played in and Henry was at the point where taking spice was as simple as pouring a bowl of cereal. It was written in his muscle memory. Autopilot.

The spice was light blue and, from the light filtering through the occasional missing wooden board in the wall, appeared to be scattered with silver traces. It wasn't powdered, nor was it hard. Instead it resembled something that looked like grated cheese, although not as floppy and more fragile.

There were many way he and Lily could enjoy the high. They could grind it further and snort, smoke it, mix it with a drink or simply eat - the later Henry had never done. Noticing an aged piece of parchment on the table Henry reached across, ripped a shred and rolled two tubes each containing the blue-silver substance. With his wand he then lit the end up his own joint of spice and handed the wand to Lily.

'Want me to light yours?' He asked, the rolled up spice resting between his lips, a sparkling midnight blue smog lightly filling the room from the burning tip of the spice.

This felt different from every other time. Lily would not consider herself a practiced user - she was too worldly to make such an ignorant claim. But she knew she knew enough and had enough experience to be comfortable with the whole process. But as she watched Henry work, working more methodically than she would have guessed the emotionally-charged man to be capable of doing, a voice in the back of her head warned her to leave, to turn back, to quit while she was ahead.

Maybe it was because she did not know if this product had been tampered with. Maybe it was because she sensed this was not going to be another fragmented occurence, but the start of a long chain of usage. Or maybe it was because she would be doing it with a stranger. She had no idea what this man was like high, and whether or not he was to be trusted, or whether or not she would do something she regretted while under the influence of the drug. The voice inside continued to insist that she stop herself before she made a mistake.

Fortunately, she had enough practice telling the voice to go to hell, so it was no problem to pretend like it was not there.

He handed her a joint and she rolled it between her fingers, her clever dark eyes taking it in from one end to the other. She placed it between her fingers and held it out for him to light. "Please."