Pray that Hell or Heaven Lets You In

News spread fast. A host of other healers and nurses had gathered, ready to evaluate their new patients as soon as Michael lowered the containment shield.

Yep, patients, plural. Jack thought she was going somewhere, but when Michael broke the spell, he was quick to grab her shoulder. There were stories about Jack's antics all through the wizarding world, and he even got to hear some off the record accounts.

"You'll be staying here a while," he told her with false joviality. There was no point pretending either of them liked this situation. He did decide to give her a private room, though.

"This is an anti-apparition ward," he said, clipping a bracelet onto her wrist. "Attempting to apparate with this on will get you splinched, and the nurses really dislike cleaning that up. When the nurses dislike you, you have a bad time. Got it?"

"Someone will be along in a moment with a gown for you, and you can put all your clothes and belongings in this bag. I need to take your wand."

Normally, Michael just let patients leave their wands in the bag, but something told him Jack would get inventive if he didn't take it away.

She could see feet scrambling around her and she pushed herself up onto her elbows, wincing. She finally scrambled up and the healers converged on Oliver as the ward fell, freeing her to-

be caught by Michael Corner.

""You'll be staying here a while."

Guess who didn't like that.

"I can come right back, but there are a lot of people who will die if-"

A bracelet slipped onto her wrist, and the idea of being splinched was an unpleasant one. She felt her temper flare, her breathing coming in more quickly now. She could tell that he wasn't going to be bullied out of it, and short of wrestling him, she couldn't see a way out without using her words.

"Michael, very few people know how to stop Fiendfyre. I don't even know who is on their way there. The average Auror probably doesn't know how to stop it, and Bishop can't do it on her own. Give me ten minutes, please, or your morgue is going to fill up fast."

"You sound like Potter," Michael told her conversationally as he took a seat on the bed. Jack probably wasn't going to be using it anytime soon.

"He had a saviour complex, not that it wasn't justified. Dumbledore positively encouraged it. But it made him think he had to do everything himself. When the Battle of Hogwarts happened, he tried to forbid the rest of us from fighting, which was completely ridiculous. We'd already been fighting all year."

"And then he went off after Voldemort without even Hermione and Ron, and got himself killed."

Michael raised his eyebrows at Jack. Sound like anyone we know?

"There are plenty of people at the Ministry who can handle fiendfyre," he assured her. "You don't have to be everywhere."

Jack was used to two reactions when she tried to muscle her way through a problem. People tended to either back off and let the raging bull loose in the china shop. Or they bullied her right back, pulling rank or making it impossible for her to do as she wanted. She certainly knew which route she preferred, though there was certainly some argument to which was better for her. She didn't know what to expect out of Corner, especially considering she was on his turf, but it certainly wasn't this.

It might have sounded dramatic, or off-base, but Jack wasn't used to people taking her humanity seriously. Jack was known as either a name or a force, with vastly different opinions as to whether or not she wa a good or a bad presence, but rarely did someone stop to consider the personality beneath the actions. She couldn't blame them. She hardly liked to consider her own inner workings, she couldn't see why anyone else might want to.

For that brief moment in time, Jack was calm. The man speaking to her was someone who had lived through a full-fledged war, had seen the martyr of the magical world in settings both casual and disastrous. He had no reason to placate her ego. She had to take his words as sincere.

(She couldn't help but wonder what Albus would think of the comparison.)

And so there was a sincerity in her own voice when she asked a question. It wasn't an appeal to be released, wasn't a manipulative. It was a question she had always assumed the answer to. "But if I have the bucket of water, shouldn't I be where the fire is?"

Michael shrugged.

"I can't answer that for you," he said. "It's a decision you have to make yourself."

"But I know when you're in the middle of a fire, everything starts to look like a bucket of water."

He stood up and began checking the cupboards, which of course, were all well stocked the way he'd expected. He just needed to move.

"You know that story about me?" he asked, though it wasn't really a question, since everyone did. "The one about how I got tortured for saving a first year?"

"That's not really how it happened. That makes it sound far more noble, and far less stupid than what actually happened. But I guess that was my bucket of water moment."

"What I thought I was seeing was a child in pain, and I thought the solution was to make the pain go away," he said. "But what I was really seeing was bait, and I took the bait and was almost killed for my troubles."

There was a freezing sensation of her arm and she looked down, seeing the angry red skin, tinged with ashy black. She winced - it wouldn't have been as bad if it had been any lesser fire.

He had taken the bait back then.

The bait.

Had someone known she was expected at Grimmauld that night? Or had they been doing it to draw the Order out? As scattered as they were and as disenfranchised as they had become, it would be an absolute bloodbath if they were cornered.

Jack knew some people who would be much better equipped.

It was with a note of resignation that she said, "Can I floo someone, pass along the countercurse? It's not as well known as it should be." She attempted a grin but winced from the pain in her arm. "I promise I won't make a break for it."

In a couple of strides, Michael closed the gap between them and caught up Jack's wrist.

"What are you doing?" he asked, turning her arm to see the burn. "Did you think I wouldn't notice this?"

No, he corrected himself. That wasn't how people like Jack worked.

"Okay, I'm sorry, that was badly put," he said. "I know you weren't trying to hide it, but this needs healing straight away, Jack. It's still burning."

"We can floo someone at the Ministry to come speak to you while it's being done, I suppose," he added. Surely more people knowing the counter spell for fiendfyre would only be a good thing?

The movement in her arm sent jolts of electricity through her arm, wincing against the pain and his accusation. He was quick to apologize, which was nice of him but hardly seemed to matter, all things considered.

"Think this is bad, you should see the other guy," she said, flickering a bracing grin, which immediately dimmed against the truth and the circumstance.

Merlin, Oliver had looked bad.

"Is..." she shook her head. What use was asking Michael after her friend when he had been tending to her the whole time.

But back to the matter at hand. She knew exactly who her phone a friend would be. "I need Kip Parsons."

"This is bad," Michael replied with no trace of amusement. "Even ordinary burns can go on burning without immediate treatment. I've no idea what happens with fiendfyre, but I have my suspicions and they're not pleasant."

He shook his head at his own stupidity.  He knew Jack's reputation.  He should have known she'd be the type to hide her own injuries.  It wasn't as though he was unfamiliar with people who did that.

"The healers treating him are better than me," he told her distractedly.  "Come on, I need to get you up to intensive care and I can't imagine you'll want a wheelchair."

"I'll get someone to summon Parsons on the way."

Yeah, humor was a good defense, but not a great antidote for Fiendfyre burns.

Michael was having none of her diversions, and it reminded her of a time in which her cousin Charlie had nearly locked her out of the house in a plea to get her to stop fixing up wounds at home. Her jobs (and her hobbies) put her in danger's way on a fairly frequent basis, and yet Jack only ever came to Mungo's when there was a very likely possibility she would die without real treatment. It was easily one of the most pig-headed things about her, and there were plenty to choose from.

She nodded grimly, trying to mask the grimace with a quirk of her lips, and followed him.