[Moscow - Nov 2001] Snow is glistening (Varya)

The arriving winter was turning Moscow in a winter wonderland already. The first snow had fallen like a white veil onto the city. Everything looked tranquil and festive outside. Inside the walls of the funeral parlour it was busy though. People seemed to die like flies these days. The morgue was filled with corpses, funerals were planned for every day now. Alla could hardly handle the amount of work she had to do. In fact the girl felt close to collapsing. It was hard to focus on her job when her health was acting up like that. The young necromancer had been a little too ambitious with her experiments again, leaving her in a weakened state that even her boss could hardly overlook. Nikolai Daniilovich remarked on her pale complexion while his gaze rested on her shaky hands. Their relationship had become a little less professional the longer they worked together. Nikolai Daniilovich was more like a fatherly friend now. He reprimanded her a lot but at the same time he could not hide his concern for her well being. However, Alla tried to play it down. Told him that she might just be getting a cold but the fact that he looked at her with a worried expression was a sign that she had really exaggerated with her studies. She could feel it herself. Every morning getting up and going to work was getting harder. The little cuts she made on herself to get blood for her experiments barely healed anymore, leaving scars she had to conceal either with long sleeves or even with make up. A glance into the mirror made her wonder if the dead bodies in the morgue were even any paler than she was.

While she had not deemed it necessary at first, the young witch was now hoping to hear from Varvara Stepanova that she had completed the potion she had offered to create to ease the side effects of necromantic experiments. She did not want to owl the older witch though, not willing to admit that she was this close to failing. What was worst about the whole situation was that she could and would not confide in anyone. If she told her sister about her current state, she'd certainly be worried and would tell her that she should not go on with her challenging experiments. And if she told Nikolai Daniilovich what exactly was causing her distress he'd probably even sack her. He had made very clear that she was not allowed to practice on the corpses in the morgue and did not approve of Necromancy in general. They had already had several arguments regarding this topic in the past and Alla did not feel up to yet another fight like that. Varvara Stepanova was one of the few people she could talk to about this all and yet, approaching her now felt like crossing a line. It was quite odd that she was in touch with her former teacher anyway. During her time at Durmstrang Alla had not really paid much attention to the person behind the professor position.

The sharp tone in Nikolai Daniilovich's voice interrupted Alla's train of thought. She looked at him, a blank expression on her face. Her boss started anew and Alla tried to focus. However, while she heard the words he spoke she could barely understand what he was trying to say. It took a while until the message sank in. He walked her to the door. 'Get some rest today. I need you in a fit state tomorrow.'  She nodded and thanked the older wizard while she grabbed her coat.

Once out of the building the chilly air almost took her breath. While it felt somehow refreshing, it took Alla a moment until she made a few tentative steps on the snowy sideway. Feeling shaky, the girl decided against apparating home, it was too much of an unnecessary risk. Instead she decided to walk. She tried to ignore the fact that she was walking slower and slower with every block she passed. Why couldn't she just be stronger? As she still thought about that, the girl slipped on an icy spot and fell. "Ouch!" she exclaimed. She felt dizzy and tears were watering her eyes now. She was unable to get to her feet just yet. Instead she examined the hand with which she had tried to stifle the fall. It was bleeding and leaving bright red marks on the blinding white snow. The few people who were passing her pretended not to see her and to be honest, Alla was rather glad that nobody attempted to talk to her.

Finally she gathered all her strength to get up again. Her lips were already turning blue because of the wet coldness that crept through her clothes. She shivered and continued her walk. The way that usually took her no longer than fifteen minutes took her over an hour this time and when she reached the building, she took another break for a moment before climbing the stairs to her little flat.

Burmin was standing by the door as though he had been waiting for her but Alla did not feel like letting him greet her with a bow like she usually did, she did not even look at him. She did not look at the cat skeleton she was working on animating either. Instead the girl collapsed on her bed. After resting there for a few minutes, she got to her feet again, grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill and wrote a note to Varvara Stepanova that was stained with blood that was still dripping from the wound on her hand.

"Varvara,
please, if you have a moment to spare, come to see me today.
Alla"

Her address was scribbled down below the note. She gave her owl the letter and watched it fly away. Then she sank back onto her bed, unable to even get out of her wet clothes.

@Varvara Zakharova

Varvara Stepanovna tapped the desk with her fingernails as she read over the short letter again. It had been quite some time since she had seen Alla; they had corresponded, but everything had been rather formal, Varya informing her former student of the progress she was making on the potion she had promised her. It was coming along, quite well in fact, and she had been toying with the idea of sending her some samples in the very near future. But now that she thought of it, she really ought to be there when she tried it out the first time, just in case of the very unlikely scenario she have a poor reaction. It wouldn’t do well to permanently disable the one person whose wellbeing was a vital part of this potion’s success.

Of course, she wouldn’t be marketing the potion as an aid to necromancers. That would garner the wrong sort of attention from the Potioneer’s Guild. Instead, it was a potion to encourage healthy cell replenishment, or something to that effect. She was still tweaking the final description for her submission to the Guild. This potion would be qualifying her for her Platinum Cauldron, she was sure of it. Everything had to be perfect.

The Healer glanced down at her watch, a small gold face on a thin gold band. It was close enough to the end of her shift and quiet enough on the floor that she wouldn’t feel too terrible leaving things to someone else. She would have to stop by her laboratory, after all, as that was where she had been working on her potion, and that would take additional time considering it was unplottable and she had made it rather difficult to get to.

But it still didn’t take her more than an hour from leaving her desk to be in Moscow by way of her lab and back to London for an urgent portkey to St Petersburg to visit her grandparents. She had changed out of her St. Mungo’s robes and into something far more sensible for the Russian city: wool trousers, a wool coat with a fur collar, and fur-lined boots. Alla lived in a part of Moscow unfamiliar to the woman, but the building was easy enough to find. She didn’t bother buzzing into the building, magicking open the door as she didn’t particularly feel like wasting more of her time traveling. Still, she had the proper courtesy to knock on the door to Alla’s flat, rapping her gloved knuckles against the door three times before offering, “Alla Artyomovna, quickly, this hall is frigid.”

After she had written the note for Varvara Alla had dozed off. She woke with a start when someone knocked on the door. Feeling disoriented at first, she did not realise that it was Varvara who had arrived. Even her calling her name didn't help at once. Slowly the information sank in. Alla wanted to get up and open the door but the wet clothes she was still wearing were not only glued to her body but also felt like a heavy weight that kept her from getting to her feet. The cold dampness made her shiver and the young necromancer tried to gather some energy to get up. A sharp pain shot through her body and she had no idea where exactly it came from. However, it was bad enough to make her vision fade.

"Come in, the door is open," she whispered faintly. Realising that her voice had hardly been loud enough for a person in the same room to hear, she sighed. The headache that accompanied her already for a few days now had got worse by now and the girl raised her hand to her forehead, only then realising that it was sticky from the blood that she hadn't washed off the wound she had got when falling on the icy ground.

She remembered that Burmin was standing right next to the entrance door and since she felt unable to move there herself she decided to try and make him open the door for Varvara. It felt like hard work to make the skeleton move now. Finally she felt that Burmin obeyed and had his hand on the door handle. She willed him to press it down and open the door.

This only worked to some degree, as when the door swung open, Alla lost control over the skeleton. The connection broke and Burmin toppled over, making a loud clacking noise as he did so.

“Alla?” The door had opened after Varya had knocked a couple more times, growing rather impatient in the hallway, but it was followed by a noise she couldn’t immediately identify. “Alla?” She asked again, pushing the door open the rest of the way, her wand trained just in case. What she saw, however, was much more tame than what she had imagined. Alla on the sofa, Burmin on the floor, colder in the flat than it had been in the hall. She closed and locked the door behind her, wasting no time in crossing the room and perching herself on the edge of the sofa cushion, peering down at Alla, who had yet to really acknowledge her presence.

“Alla,” she stated more firmly, her hand now on the girl’s wrist, searching for a pulse. She found one and moved on to waking her up, slightly-harder-than-necessary taps on Alla’s cheeks before resigning to using her wand to ennervate her. “Come, up,” the healer encouraged her as she stirred. She conjured another pillow to prop Alla’s head, enough for Varya to be able to tip a bit of potion into her mouth. It ought to be just enough to wake her up, though she would certainly be a bit groggy still.

Varya stood, tapping the heat on with her wand as she moved to the kitchen, on the hunt for a bottle of vodka. She didn’t find anything as quickly as she would have liked, instead pulling out a small flask from her purse before returning to Alla’s side. Shoving the alcohol into Alla’s hand, the older witch took a step back and peered down at her, hands on her hips, doing her best to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She could have sworn she didn’t actually care about her more than her healer oaths required her to.

“What is going on, Alla Artyomovna?”

She heard a voice calling her name from what seemed a far distance. Alla had no idea where she was, what time it was and felt unable to move or even to open her eyes. Maybe the voice wasn't even really there. She could very well be dreaming of someone calling her name. However, it came closer but still felt far away. This was implausible though because Alla could feel the warmth of a touch. Before she could really comprehend that Varvara was there, searching for her pulse, the older witch already tapped her cheeks and then woke her by using her wand.

The girl blinked a few times, feeling disoriented still. As Varvara opened a vial and put some of the potion into Alla's mouth, the young necromancer slowly began to understand where she was. She looked at Varvara, wanting to say something to her but her brain was still only slowly working, the stinging headache didn't help either. Her mouth felt dry and she shivered because of the coldness of her flat and of her soaked clothes. While the flat was slowly getting warmer, it had little effect on her yet. She briefly feared that the older witch was leaving her again as she left the room for a brief moment but soon enough she was back at her side.

The alcohol that Varvara applied to her injured hand burned and Alla almost pulled her hand away. She was just a little too feeble and slow to do so. The burning sensation already faded before she could react.

Apparently the older witch was rather displeased, given how she looked down at her and how she voiced her question. However, Alla was not quite certain she knew how to interpret the disapproval. Was Varvara disappointed because Alla had got herself into such a pity state? Was she mad because she was wasting precious time on her now? The girl tried to sit up but as her vision threatened to fade out again, she remained where she was.

What could she say now? What was going on? It took her a moment until she made up her mind and gathered enough energy to answer the question.

"I guess I... I exaggerated a little with work and... my experiments... and then I slipped on the icy ground on my way back home and... fell." She paused and closed her eyes as the headache seemed to intensify. "I'm sorry I begged you to come but I didn't know who else I could ask and who else would be able to help..."

Alla stirred; Varya peered down at her, not resuming her spot on the edge of the sofa next to her. “Drink that,” she pointed to the flask, centimeters away from Alla’s hand. She took a few steps back, turning on lights as she made another circuit around the room, coming to rest back in front of Alla as she spoke again. She listened with one raised eyebrow, resisting the urge to cross her arms across her chest, her stance already too similar to her own mother’s. That was certainly not the sort of relationship that was occurring here.

She… exaggerated. Varya was certainly aware of that much; she was honestly surprised she had only managed to fall on the ice. Still, it was a good thing Varya had been summoned. She brought in a chair from the kitchen and settled into it, an arm’s length away from her former student. “You were correct in writing to me, at least.” She leaned forward to feel Alla’s forehead and cheeks, before straightening her back and pointing again at the flask. “You should finish that.” Her potion was good, of course, but vodka was better.

“I brought the experimental potion, however,” her eyes trailed over Alla’s scraped hand for a few seconds before leaning in again, pulling the hand toward her. Holding Alla’s hand with her left, Varya healed the scrapes with a few dabs of her wand. “However,” she continued, “The potion must precede the experiments.” She straightened up again, letting go of Alla’s hand and taking the flask from her to have a swallow herself.

Varya glanced around the room, not finding anything too interesting about it, if one discounted the pile of bones by the door. “I can treat your symptoms, but I’ll have to insist you cease from doing anything more without more care.” By care, she meant her potion. “What sort of experiment was it?”

Alla drank from the flask that Varvara had offered. The alcohol warmed her from the inside and somehow it seemed to take away some of the pain as well. She watched as Varvara moved through the room, observing every movement closely, half afraid that Varvara would decide to leave her alone.

The reassurance Varvara gave her in telling her that it had been right to contact her felt soothing and Alla relaxed a little. She felt Varya's cool hand on her forehead and her cheeks and closed her eyes. The coolness helped with the headache or so she felt at least. Then, upon being reminded to do so, she took another sip of vodka. The burning sensation was less prominent now that she took already her second and third sip.

At the mention of the potion, Alla tried to sit up, eager to hear more about it as Varya healed the scrapes on the hand she had fallen on. She felt like asking her to give it to her now so she could get up and fix Burmin again. What had happened to her pet skeleton did not sit well with Alla, after all. Her friend just being a pile of bones was an unbearable thought. 'The potion must precede the experiments.' What did that mean? Did it not help her now? Did she have to rest until she was better, take it then to prevent herself from getting into this kind of state again? Well, it sounded reasonable in a way but also disappointing. Alla had naturally hoped that Varya would achieve a little miracle with her potion.

"But you can cure all symptoms now and then I can try the potion and..." she paused, as her sight threatened to fade out again, "and then I can fix up Burmin?" She hoped that Varvara would say yes to this but somehow had a distinct feeling that she would not be able to do so today.

"I have been trying all sorts of things..." she began to respond to Varya's question evasively. Then, thinking that Varvara deserved to know what she had been up to, she decided to confide in her. "Well, I've been practising possession again a lot lately..." her voice trailed off as she remember when they had met for the first time since they had been professor and student at Durmstrang. "You know that I've been struggling a little with that. I tried to possess cats mostly but they are not that easy to control. Besides I animated corpses at the funeral parlour whenever I got a chance to be alone there. I tried to make their facial expression change..." She sank back on the pillow, feeling exhausted. Alla hoped that Varvara would be satisfied with this reply and would also see what kind of progress she was making with her experiments.

She took a good look over Alla’s other limbs, pulling back her sleeves and checking for scrapes and bruises, finding nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the things she assumed were associated with Alla’s experiments. She healed them, one by one, her concentration split between her work and Alla’s general wellbeing. Still, Varya handled her gently enough, making a mental note to bring some sort of salve she could use on those faint scars from cuts that Alla had attempted to heal herself.

“Of course I can cure all symptoms now,” Varya sat back in her chair, her hands folded in her laps, her legs crossed at the ankle. She had no doubt that she could cure everything that what was wrong with the girl; but to launch immediately into being the first human test subject of a potion… Varya was unsure that was the best course of action. While she was eager to see that her potion was effective and worth her near yearlong efforts, she would also prefer Alla not perish on her first try. That wouldn’t bode well with the guild.

And necromancers were hard to come by. She might have to start testing her potion in the ways that she was planning to market it: to keep that small subset of chronically ill witches and wizards healthy. And that would be unfortunate.

“But Burmin can wait,” she finished, not glancing at the pile of bones by the door.

Varya raised an eyebrow as Alla detailed her current experiments. She recalled Alla’s earlier attempts at possession, Alla’s earlier failed attempts, mind. That pigeon had been the genesis of this new potion, after all. She was grateful that Alla was putting herself through all of this, that at the very least, Varya would benefit from it. And if the potion also helped Alla not wither away as a frail and tragic thing, then that was a bonus, she assumed.

She sketched a half smile at Alla’s mention of reanimating corpses; she almost regretted working at a hospital so far away. There would be too much suspicion attached to Varya directing a recently deceased patient to a funeral parlor in Moscow -- this potion really was the only way she could assist.

“Do you think you would be able to cease any experiments for a week?” This might not be long enough, but Varya would be able to re-examine Alla and determine if she was well enough for the potion and more necromancy. “That includes Burmin,” she added.

As Varvara stated that she could cure all symptoms now, Alla smiled weakly. That sounded quite good indeed. In fact, she was already feeling a lot better now or thought so at least. Varya had healed the wound on her hand, given her a potion and vodka to drink and had dealt with her older cuts and scars one by one.

She sat up eagerly, feeling slightly dizzy as she did so. Alla was unwilling to admit that she still felt feeble. She looked at her former professor quite surprised when Varya said that Burmin could wait. He definitely could not wait. She glanced at the pile of bones. The mere sight of it made her sad. Burmin was more than just a pile of bones to her, after all.

Hearing Varvara say that she should not do any experiments for a week including fixing Burmin, Alla shook her head. "No," she said, "No, not including Burmin. I can refrain from doing any experiments but Burmin is not an experiment! He's my companion. I cannot possibly leave him in this state for a week!" The girl looked at the healer indignantly. How could Varvara demand such an outrageous thing from her? She had really believed that the older witch understood her better than that. In her state of exhaustion, Alla could not compose herself as she usually did. She did not generally show emotions but right now she couldn't help it. Tears welled up and she suppressed a sob. "He's important to me," she brought out, her voice breaking. Why didn't people get that Burmin was a part of her? He was her first masterpiece and accompanied her already for several years. Not restoring him to his full beauty right away felt like a betrayal to a close friend and Alla could not bear it.

Slowly she tried to get to her feet, ready to approach the pile of bones to restore Burmin to his full grace right away. Right at this moment, close to another breakdown, Alla could not think clear. She was unaware what she might not even be able to use necromantic magic now. As she rose, her legs were trembling and yet she wanted to get to her beloved skeleton. She made a tentative step forward, almost colliding with the chair on which Varvara was sitting. She hesitated for a moment, trying to gather enough strength to approach the pile of bones.

Varya leaned forward almost imperceptibly as Alla sat up, ready to catch her should she decide to keel over right then and there, almost preferring that she would once Alla started arguing with her. She pursed her lips as she narrowed her gaze, somehow refraining from shaking her head right back at her. Burmin, the non-experiment, the companion, couldn’t wait. Was he autonomous? Would he be able to move without Alla’s interference? She may have gotten to the point where it was second nature -- which Varya had to congratulate her on -- but there was a reason Burmin was currently a pile of bones.

She wasn’t going to handle Alla’s emotions, either. She wasn’t going to fight her on this, rather just taking her potion and all her expertise and leaving Alla to figure everything out for herself. She realized that she had literally just been thinking she needed Alla, that necromancers were hard to come by, but at this point she reckoned it would be worth the effort to find a new one. Varya didn’t say anything, instead glancing down at her lap and smoothing out the fabric of her robes rather casually, waiting for Alla to finish up.

Raising an eyebrow, Varya watched her former student attempt to stand, anticipating that it wouldn’t end well. Varya shifted as Alla took a step, as if to be ready to catch her, though she was more concerned with Alla stepping on the hem of her robes with her muddy boots. “Allochka,” Varya said simply, her gaze flicking momentarily toward the girl before shifting back to the sofa she had just vacated.

“Do not make me take him with me when I leave you,” she threatened, careful to not call the skeleton an it, not wanting to have any more of the girl’s emotions to deal with that evening.

It was obvious that Alla was in no state to restore Burmin just now. However, the girl's brain did not process that information just yet. She was confused, desperate and too exhausted to act reasonably now. She did not realise that she was about to drive Varya away with her irrational behaviour. Totally oblivious to the situation at hand, all Alla could think about was that Burmin, her dear dead friend, was just a pile of bones now.

Varvara threatened to take Burmin with her and Alla turned to face her older companion. If possible the girl got even paler than she had been before. She stared at her former professor, slowly understanding what she had just heard. "You... you wouldn't..." She stammered, her eyes watering.

Nonetheless the Necromancer made a step back towards her bed and sank down on it. She hid her face in her hands and shook her head slightly. It was hard to comprehend and accept that she was in no fit state to restore Burmin. However, slowly but surely the realisation came and she began to see sense. If she wanted to recover and if she wanted to restore Burmin without sacrificing her own health any more, she needed to listen to the healer.

"Okay..." she finally whispered, her voice sounding hoarse. "I promise not to do any experiments for... for a few days." She finally looked at Varya again. She tried to find words to phrase the conditions under which she'd follow the healer's instructions. "I have one favour to ask of you though," she began, lowering her gaze as she felt like it might be perceived as presumptuous. "Can you help me put Burmin's bones somewhere else? Maybe we could at least arrange them so he looks a little more like himself even if I do not animate him for a few days... I... I just cannot..." bear to look at him in this state she didn't voice the last few words, thinking that Varvara, that nobody actually would understand this sentiment.

"Please."

@Christine sorry for the delay... <333

Varya pursed her lips, almost daring Alla to fight her on this. Naturally, Varya would win, and she wouldn’t feel much worse for it. “Alla,” she said again, this time motioning to the abandoned cushions with an outstretched hand, the last time she would be telling the girl to take a seat. She would, one way or the other, cease standing; it was up to Alla to decide if she would do that voluntarily or not.

“I would,” she stated simply. She had no clue if Alla’s threat of tears was genuine or not, and frankly she didn’t care. Varya refrained from rolling her eyes at least, and from reaching for her wand to encourage her to make up her mind a little faster. Alla saw the sense of it all, finally, and took a seat, and it was only after Alla had buried her head in her hands that the healer shook her head.

“One week. I won’t ask again.” She would be able to tell if Alla did experiments any sooner than that, and the look she gave Alla when they made eye contact said as much. Varya stood, touching Alla’s shoulder lightly before taking a few steps away to fiddle with the flat’s heating a bit more.

She turned back to the other woman with one eyebrow arched, her interests piqued at Alla’s request for a favor. “Hmm?” Could she put Burmin’s bones somewhere else? If she had to deal with a skeleton -- and not even one she had any responsibility for it being in that state in the first place -- she would do nothing more than take it to her laboratory in a box. Maybe not even that. That was so much more proof of anything shady than an array of innocuous ingredients. Perhaps it was for the best that she leave it here in Moscow.

“So that you do not animate him for a week,” she corrected Alla as she nodded, silently agreeing to fulfill her request. Varya hesitated for a second, only pausing to determine the best ‘like himself’ sort of way to position the skeleton, before pointing her wand at the pile of bones by the floor. They vibrated for a second before picking themselves up, stacking themselves in a proper order, and looking just like a very expensive version of any resin-based skeleton one would find in a human anatomy class.

“Will that do?”