Of Heir and Household

Zander hadn't left the boy's side since he had carried him in here, instead deigning to lounge his tall form across the three chairs next to the bed. On his lap sat a simple book on Dragons, the words in Italian. He narrowed his eyes at the picture of the Hungarian Horntail, blowing fire at the corner of the page. Running a finger over the picture, grinning as the illustrated dragon tried to nip at his finger.

He glanced over at the bed as the boy occupying it moved, perking up slightly as he continued moving. "Damian?" He asked softly, standing and coming to the side of the bed. "How do you feel?"

Damian tossed a bit in his sleep, then woke with a start. He squinted against the brightness of the room around him, the scent immediately betraying it as 'medical'. Not that the muzzy feeling in his head didn't give that away, already.

Turning towards the bedside table, Damian grabbed the empty vials sitting there. He sniffed the first, immediately identifying it as having contained a concussion draught. The second vial baffled him. At least, it didn't smell like anything he remembered taking before.

Why was he even here? Where was here? Had he been fighting again? "M' dad'll be pissed," Damian mumbled. He'd promised the man - but wait. That didn't make sense. Who would he have been fighting to end up in a place like this?

He looked up at the person standing next to his bed.

"Daws'n?" Merlin, he hated the effect some medicinal potions had on him. It was always the headache and concussion draughts. "Wh't happened?"

Damian frowned, shaking his head a bit to clear it. What had they given him, anyway? "Feel weird."

"Dad?" He asked, shrinking away from the thought of that. "Is he gonna be angry that you're here?" Having never of told his father when he needed to go to the hospital - one of the bar staff was pretty much McGuiver with medicine - he didn't know how their father would react to this. He supposed anger would come when he realized how much he had to pay... hospital bills were always the most expensive, weren't they?

"Uh... I think someone attacked you." Looking away from the boy to glance at the door of the hospital room - which was closed - he searched for any medical staff. None of them had seemed very impressed with the fact that he wouldn't leave, but none of them did anything about it. Maybe it was a history of the other patients' families-?

"Didn't get a good look at them... sorry." Fidgeting now that the boy he'd watched over was awake, Zander kept his eyes trained around his sneakers, hoping that Damian would give him permission to leave - or stay.

"I think that's just the pain med- potions." He said worriedly, glancing at the bedside table. "I could call a nurse, if that'll make you better?"

"What?" Damian blinked confusedly. Why was he mentioning him? "S'not even his business," he muttered, still trying to piece together what had happened.

Attacked? Damian frowned, taking stock of himself. Obviously, he had hit his head, but there weren't any other phantom aches - or rather, there weren't any specific ones. His hand went idly to the side of his neck. What kind of attack...

He sat bolt upright as it all came flooding back, teeth gnashing together. Snatching his wand off the side table, he canted a quick lumos, with no result. "That bastard!" he snarled, dropping the currently useless wand into his lap.

"No," Damian grimaced, "let 'em wear off. What else did they give me? They tell you?" He held up the vial that had held the unidentified potion. "It's not a pain draught."

Leaning back, Damian rubbed his eyes, grateful that the aftereffects of the potions seemed to be wearing off rather quickly. "I'm guessing my master hasn't been contacted?" he asked, feeling a bit tired even though he'd just regained consciousness.

It was pretty much a rhetorical question. If Asric knew he was there, the man would have shown up already. Stupid muggles and their damned magic-nullifying serum. How did they even still have that stuff?

"B-but you said- nevermind." Zander ran his fingers through his hair, glancing at the potions on the table for the briefest of moments. Maybe Damian was lucky enough to have found an actual father figure. He probably had. The younger boy seemed much more fortunate than he did, and it would probably stay that way. Dawson wasn't very bothered by it in the least. He was happy for Damian. If they were brothers, one of them deserved to be happy.

Jumping slightly at the younger boy's exclamation, he blinked a few times, shrinking away slightly. It took a moment for the irrational expectation to be punished to be pushed down, and when that finally happened, another moment for him to raise his gaze up from his sneakers to the boy himself. "I think what they gave you was supposed to speed up bringing your magic back." He said, his voice timid. "I don't remember. They were all moving so fast and I thought they'd lost you a few times and-" He swallowed and looked down at his shoes again. "But you're okay. I think it might be working, maybe."

"You have a master?" Dawson asked, blinking. He hadn't thought to contact anyone. No one would have been contacted should he himself had somehow gotten here, and he hadn't even spared the thought that someone else would care about Damian. It was with a sense of awe that Zander realized that more than one person cared about his brother, and a small sense of sadness when he realized once more that only Juliet cared about him. "I'm sorry I didn't- know. What's his name? I'll have him here immediately."

When the other boy finally looked up, Damian was gazing at him incredulously. The words, What is wrong with you, were literally on the tip of his tongue. But Damian had always been observant - a tie-over from being the neighborhood punching bag. He knew exactly what was wrong with Dawson.

Damian made no comment, instead, giving the mystery vial another curious sniff, before setting them all back on the bedside table.

"I'm apprentice to the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Asric Chaos," Damian replied. "It's fine - you wouldn't have known. Ordinarily, he'd be here, already. Our master-apprentice bond would have let him know I was in trouble..."

The boy frowned, looking decidedly unhappy, hurt flashing in his blue eyes. "I don't know why he's not here, yet," he mumbled.

Ric sighed and dropped the files of cases onto his desk. He couldn't concentrate on finding people when his wife still couldn't remember him, peoples thoughts were constantly invading hims mind and there had been an annoying feeling at the back of his mind trying to tell him something for hours. It wasn't until he sat down and took a deep breath to calm himself that he realised what it was.

Bolting out of his seat he spun on the spot and apparated straight to the st mungos entrance, following his mind to where he knew his apprentice waited. Many tried to stop him but nothing was was going to get in his way. Finally he burst through the doors to Damian's room and rushed over to his side. "Damian? What happened?" He frowned. "You!" He said turning his attention to Dawson. "Did you have something to do with this? Who did this?" He asked narrowing his eyes as he searched deeper into his mind to seek the truth.

"Asric Chaos." Zander repeated, nodding and committing the name to memory. "Headmaster of Hogwarts. I'll go-" He turned as if to leave before he paused, turning back to look at the boy and return to his side.

"Hey." He said, blinking at the hurt he caught in his brothers eyes. "I'm sure he's on his way. I mean, maybe he had to stop and- talk to some nurses. They do that at hospitals right?" He nodded to himself. They did in books anyway. "He's probably outside right-"

Flinching away from the doorway as the man burst through, for the first time in his entire life, Zander felt the unexplainable urge to throw himself in the way of danger, if it would spare his brother the pain for even the briefest of moments. The moment passed the second the man started talking, the teen able to hear the concerned tones. So this was his brother's father.

The man was everything Zander had ever wished for on every birthday candle - had he been lucky enough to get one - and every expectation he'd ever had his entire life.

Of course he was Damian's.

Smiling a soft smile at his brother's fortune, the boy didn't react until he was addressed, jolting violently as his brown eyes returned to the man. His mouth opened in shock as he tried and failed to answer the questions before the man fired new ones. "I- No- I don't-" His gaze returned to his sneakers, finding himself nearly quaking with fear. He didn't try to run, running always made things worse, and the inescapable tie to his brother's bedside seemed to be going nowhere.

He may have been threatened, may have been terrified out of his mind, but he wasn't leaving Damian alone with someone who he felt was a threat; even if the threat was toward Zander himself.

Damian was about to respond to Dawson, to wave off the unnecessary reassurance - he wasn't a child after all. Furthermore, he was only Asric's apprentice, nothing more. Damian was well aware of this hard truth, regardless of how he felt.

Before he could speak, however, the door opened and Asric rushed through it. "Master!" Damian exclaimed, his expression brightening just enough to be noticeable. "I'm fine, I-" He broke off as the man turned on Dawson.

"Sir, Dawson helped me!" the boy explained hurriedly. "He brought me after I had a reaction to that magic-nullifying stuff the muggles created. I was attacked by-"

The words caught in his throat, conflicting emotions flashing across his face - hurt, denial, anger, hatred - before he looked away, shamefaced, even as his expression went cautiously blank. He'd lied to the man. Not directly, but through omission, through his familiar to tell his master about the threatening letter he'd received almost a year before.

"I was attacked by my father," Damian finally admitted, tone quiet, blue eyes fixed on the floor.