Rough and Tumble [Rowena]

[Cassandra Baker]

The world is pain.

Cassandra can't see, can't hear, can barely breathe. All she knows is white-hot, ringing pain throughout her body. Somewhere, in a detached corner of her mind, she knows something is terribly wrong. Portkey travel was just about the safest form of Magical travel there was. There hadn't been a reported accident in over 50 years. This shouldn't be happening, but it was. Somehow, her emergency Portkey had malfunctioned. She forced her eyes open, her hand still holding the small plush unicorn inside her vest pocket and gasped. During normal Portkey travel, the traveler would be able to make out their surroundings if they concentrated enough, focused on one point in the distance. What surrounded her wasn't the London skyline like it should have been. She was sure that she was travelling through Hell.

Just as suddenly as the pain had come on, it stopped. She thumped unceremoniously to the floor with a violent exhalation, her eyes shutting immediately against the cloud of dust that was kicked up. She stayed like that, face down on the floor, for a few heartbeats as she groaned out in pain. Thankfully the violent assault on the inside of her skull had subsided enough for her to pick her head up and look around the room.

She immediately recognized it as the interview chamber that she'd just tried to Portkey out of. But everything was different. The table, once front and center in the room, had been pushed to one side with a white cotton sheet placed over it. The soft couch that had once occupied the wall opposite the door was gone entirely, and every surface of the room was coated in dust. She knew that this was the room that she had just left, but she also knew just as surely that no one had been in here for years.

She stood then, slowly so that her aching muscles could stretch out, and brushed the dust off of her vest and collared shirt. Her black jeans were most certainly a waste of effort to wipe off manually, so she ignored them in favor of stepping toward the door. As soon as she moved, however, loud clanging alarms began blaring, filling the room entirely with sound. She pressed her hands to her head in an attempt to block it out for a few moments before mentally kicking herself. She was a witch, after all. Squinting against the noise, she brought out her wand and silenced the alarms with a casual wave. No sooner had she done so than the door crashed open, two wizards moving through it with wands drawn. She eyed them warily, her wand held toward them loosely.

"Identify yourself!" one of the wizards demanded gruffly.

"Drop your wands," she commanded in return, "I am Cassandra Baker, Assistant Department Head."

"No Assistant Heads by that name," the first one spat back, unwavering, motioning to his colleague, who sent off a messenger patronus. Cass gaped at him in shock. She opened her mouth to respond when a voice she recognized all too well, a drawling American accent, spoke from inside her head.

"Well, well," the voice of Marcus Wilkes chuckled, "What a pickle we've gotten ourselves into, doc."

[Rowena Jones]

For once, it had been a somewhat ok day on the Spell Damage Ward. No backfiring wands, no idiots who really shouldn’t be allowed to perform magic if you asked Rowena, no curses. Just one child who had run into the way of his parent’s spellcasting. Minor, regular stuff. Easy. After using the accident as a good teaching opportunity, Rowena had spent the rest of the day catching up with the paperwork that was the bane of any Head of Department’s life.

Being on call wasn’t really an issue. She already spent most of her time at the hospital between her regular work and her own private projects that it was pretty much her home. She was taking a huge sip of coffee while staring at the budgets parchments in front of her when a bright yellow light started flashing furiously in her office. What on earth was that?! That had certainly never happened before. She quickly placed her mug on the desk and went over to her wall to see what was demanding her attention so furiously.

The Prison Ward?

No one had been in there in years. There’d been no need. The War was long over and besides, no one had really relished working in an area where someone had died, disappeared…whatever it was that the Flux had done. By the time Rowena had arrived at Mungos ten years previously, that whole wing had been shut off, only occasionally visited by the odd trainee on a stupid dare.

She scowled. Whichever trainee had decided to visit the supposedly haunted rooms was going to severely regret choosing to do so on a night where she was in charge. Rowena quickly tidied her desk with a wave of her wand before making her way to the scene of the crime.

She wasn’t wholly prepared for the sight that met her when she arrived. Two security Wizards were pointing wands at a young woman who was certainly not a current trainee at Mungos. For the love of Magic, were non-medics also now daring each other to come up here?! She stepped into the frenzy, her amber gaze blazing.

“Ma’am, you’re trespassing. This is a restricted area. How did you get up here?”

“Healer Covington ma’am, she said she was Assistant Department Head,” one of the security guards provided helpfully.

Rowena turned a delicately arched eyebrow to look at the intruder. “Well that’s certainly not true. My name is Rowena Covington. Head of the Spell Damage Department. Who the hell are you really?”

[Cassandra Baker]

In the thirty seconds that had passed since she heard the very unwelcome tones of Wilkes in her head, her thoughts had been swirling a mile a minute. She felt like screaming. She felt like puking. Most of all, she felt like someone needed to cast an Enervate on her right-the-hell-now so that she could wake up from this nightmare. She was holding her previous position though, not giving any outward sign that a madman was taking residence in her head as she maintained her wand in a casual, but still defensive position. She tried to think back to the moment she'd activated the Portkey, tried to figure out exactly what had gone wrong, and that moment of weakness was enough.

"You boys make a cute couple," she heard herself say, her eyes widening in surprise even as her mouth continued to move, "Which of you is the top?"

The two guards glanced at one another in astonishment before turning back to her, eyes hard. Amusement flared in a corner of her brain, an emotion she knew wasn't hers. She could feel him trying to make her mouth move, as well as her wand arm, and could feel him trying to force the words 'Avada Kedavra' past her lips.

With a barely contained grunt, she slammed her Occlumancy shields in place and felt immense relief when she could no longer feel Wilkes' presence.

She regained her composure just in time for a well-dressed, professional looking woman to stroll through the door.

"Ma'am, you're trespassing. This is a restricted area. How did you get up here?"

Cass opened her mouth to speak, but the guard that Wilkes had dubbed "Boy-Toy 1" spoke up first, relaying what she'd already told them about her position. Her lips twisted in confusion when he called her "Healer Covington". She'd never heard of anyone by that name. And then the woman was speaking again.

"Well that's certainly not true. My name is Rowena Covington. Head of the Spell Damage Department. Who the hell are you, really?"

Cass couldn't contain the scoff that passed her lips. But at the same time, she couldn't discount anything that was happening here. The state of this room was more than enough proof that something had gone terribly wrong. Was this some sort of alternate dimension?

As a sign of faith, she slowly straightened from her defensive position and made a show of stowing her wand. She was outnumbered, anyway, and she wasn't exactly an accomplished duelist.

"I'm Cassandra. Cassandra Baker, but most everyone calls me Cass," she replied smoothly, her voice taking on the tone she used when she needed to calm a distressed patient. "I'm the Assistant Department Head of Spell Damage, in charge of Long-Term Care and Mind-Healing. And I don't know who you think you are, but the Head of the Spell Damage Department is Harold Stone."

She crossed her arms then, her eyes boring into Rowena's. "Just what the bloody hell is going on here?"

[Rowena Jones]

Rowena glowered at the scoff. She had fought long and hard, worked days and nights to earn her position at Mungo’s. She had enough to deal with from some of her co-workers who thought she was too young (and for some, too female) for the job. She was not about to let some random stranger question her authority too.

She watched carefully as the other woman slowly lowered her wand, waiting for any sign of an attack. Rowena was no duelist but she had numbers on her side. If the woman tried anything, then she was confident they could deal with it.

"I'm Cassandra. Cassandra Baker, but most everyone calls me Cass. I'm the Assistant Department Head of Spell Damage, in charge of Long-Term Care and Mind-Healing. And I don't know who you think you are, but the Head of the Spell Damage Department is Harold Stone. Just what the bloody hell is going on here?"

“Harold Stone retired last year,” Rowena said coldly, but there was a nagging feeling that something big was happening here. Something she was missing. That name. Cassandra Baker. She could have sworn she had heard it before. “I was Assistant Head before that for two years, and before me it was James Whyte-Smith who worked here for fifteen years before he moved to America. If you’re going to invent a story, you should at least do your research,”

Mind Healing though… There was something, Rowena knew it. She’d been reading something on the subject just a couple of weeks ago, hoping for something to help advance her own research. What was it?! She let none of this inner confusion show as she lowered her wand carefully too, mirroring Cassandra’s semi-aggressive stance.

“As for what is going on here… How should I know? You’re the one intruding and lying. What were you doing? This area has been closed for 17 years. Ever since the Flux. There’s nothing here but ghost stories and dust.”

[Cassandra Baker]

"Harold Stone retired last year."

Well, that settled it. Either her Portkey had found a way to cross dimensional barriers or she had time-travelled forward. The thing is though, that narrowing it down to those two options didn't help her situation at all, since they were both supposed to be fucking impossible. Oh, of course she'd heard of the multiverse theory from her interest in Muggle science, and there were all kinds of propositions on the linearity of time from researches in the Department of Mysteries, but nothing concrete had ever been done with either possibility.

"I am not 'inventing a story'," she retorted, her fingers forming perhaps-too-aggressive air quotes, "You can ask Harold yourself about me, if you'd like. And also, do you really expect me to believe that a second-rate blowhard like James Whyte-Smith became Assistant Head my department? Harold couldn't stand that man. Said he wasn't worth the effort it took to Scourgify a toilet."

It was everything Cass could do to keep up her facade of cold detachment and her Occlumancy barriers as she struggled to put together the pieces. It was a miracle she even heard the tail of Rowena's questioning, a blessing which gave her the information she needed to pick the more likely hypothesis. 17 years. So she had time travelled, if this woman could be believed. That still didn't explain the presence of a murdering, torturing psychopath in her mind.

Her unconscious use of the past tense for Harold struck her as the realities of the facts she'd just been given caught up to her in a sudden rush. Her mental shields cracked, but she held firm, devoting what little strength she could to them as she felt her legs give out.

"17 years," she choked out around the dust she'd kicked up, not caring just how her sudden meltdown might look, "How could I have lost 17 years?"

[Rowena Jones]

"You can ask Harold yourself about me, if you'd like. And also, do you really expect me to believe that a second-rate blowhard like James Whyte-Smith became Assistant Head my department? Harold couldn't stand that man. Said he wasn't worth the effort it took to Scourgify a toilet."

Rowena found herself nodding in agreement before she could catch herself. Whyte-Smith had been an idiot. She’d chaffed working under him. He’d been capable sure, but capable did not an excellent Healer make. The day he’d announced he was leaving, she had gone home and danced around her living room, wine in hand and celebrated the end of tedious droning and lackluster healing. Her subsequent promotion had made it all the sweeter.

With the acknowledgement that this woman knew the Healers they were talking about, the pieces of the puzzle started to click into place. Before James, the Assistant Head had been another woman, one of the youngest they’d had. Rowena knew because she’d admired the woman who had done what she herself had been doing… her name had been Cassandra… and by the look of it, the other woman was also starting to understand what had happened here.

"17 years. How could I have lost 17 years?"

Rowena sighed heavily in resignation. “Wait. You’re the Cassandra Baker. The Cassandra Baker who wrote a paper about Prolonged Spell Damage and its Effects on the Mind?...but that’s impossible. You died. Everyone died that day…and yet. You’re here.” She’d come to Hogwarts at the time it had happened so she hadn’t really experienced the actual Flux, but she’d sure noticed it’s after effects. The solemn atmosphere and hushed voices. And Cassandra Baker was definitely declared dead. She remembered now. The disappointment and frustration at learning the author of that interesting paper was deceased and all that knowledge lost. Rowena had had so many questions to ask!

The implications of what was happening hit Rowena like a brick. She’d eat her shoe if this was a singular event. There was no way that only one victim would come back. She’d done a bit of reading on the Flux. It was a mystery and there was nothing she loved more than a good mystery. But if that many had disappeared in one go and now one of them was back, odds were, there’d be others. She wondered dimly if that meant the Warcombes would be back too, but quickly focused on the manner at hand. The Ministry needed to know.

She motioned to the security guards to stand down. Whatever was happening here, it didn’t require wands. “Did you call the Ministry?” she asked one quietly, still keeping an eye on Cassandra.

“Yes Ma’am. They’re on their way.”

Rowena nodded before approaching the other woman.

“Look, I don’t know exactly what is going on here, but if you are Cassandra Baker, then you disappeared in the Flux 17 years ago. Basically, a lot of people went missing. The ministry declared you all dead. And now you’re back. Which leads me to think more people will be coming back too.” She said. There was no point sugarcoating it. How did you sugarcoat something like this anyway?

"I need to ask you if you feel ok. I can't say there's any precedent for this so I'm not sure what ok means, but if there's anything unusual, besides the obvious 17 year time jump, you need to let me know." Rowena asked as her Healer training kicked in.