(no subject)

[bloodandflowers]

He doesn't know how much time has passed, only that it's dark again, and the brown bottle he'd magicked from the pub below his rooms is dwindling. Kell throws an arm over his eyes and tries to drift, to stay half asleep where he can't remember why his eyes burn or his chest aches, but the memories of the wedding rise up to claim him all the same.

Just go, Kell, his mind helpfully supplies in Lila's voice, and Kell makes a brief, miserable sound, too worn now to weep anymore. He rolls over and examines his whiskey. After another sleep, he'll have to get more. He takes a gulp of it and puts it down, taking up the ornament Sirius had bought him and nearly been robbed of instead. Kell runs his thumb down its strange edges, holding it loosely as he closes his eyes to chase more oblivion.

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[thebloodtraitor]

Sirius is well aware it happens, he's heard talk of it himself from a number of sources. But it's not something he's let himself truly think about for some time. After all, if he's to leave this place, where would he go but to Azkaban? Even if it isn't a matter of choice, even if what Kell says is true, Sirius can't help but wonder. Harry at least has something to return to, a glorious future of sorts.

All Sirius has are steel bars and Dementors.

He opens his mouth in protest again, but the words stay stuck in his throat. Harry's presence here has long felt like a second chance, a redemption of sorts. And that's not fair, is it? Harry welcomed here with open arms and no ill feelings despite being perfectly entitled to more than a few. And what Sirius done but cling to him, to the boy whose parents he killed? Foolishly, Sirius had convinced himself that he could protect Harry here, that he could in some small way right his egregious wrong. But Harry's required no protection; at only eighteen years of age, he's ten times the man Sirius could ever hope to be.

It's difficult to swallow he notes, difficult to breathe and Sirius's chest hitches when he sees the utter mess Kell has made of himself. The mess Sirius had selfishly begged him to make. "Your arms," he whispers, nearly drowning now in guilt and grief both. "Kell, I can't-- without my wand, I can't even--"

[bloodandflowers]

"I'll heal," says Kell, for he will, albeit much more slowly without magic. He will bind his arms and apply his salves, and though it won't be a pleasant recuperation, he'll hardly die.

Kell looks at Sirius' wand, and broken though it is, he can understand the shape of it now - the hollow space meant to be a vessel to contain and focus magic. All that's missing is its center.

"What makes a core for these?"

[thebloodtraitor]

Will he? Kell seems sure, but Sirius still can only stare at the shreds of skin, each cut made at Sirius's request.

And for nothing.

It takes him a moment to realize Kell's asked a question, and his gaze drifts to where his wand lies useless and broken upon the dirty ground, as gutted as Sirius himself. "Mine's dragon heartstring," he explains, his voice dulled now. Empty. "Not all are." It's not exactly replaceable is the thing. And still means next to nothing compared to Harry.

[bloodandflowers]

There are no dragons in Kell's world, but after this long in Darrow, he understands the term, what it means. "There are unicorns here," he says. "Other magical creatures."

It's no fix for the hole in Sirius' life where Harry should be, but it's something. "There's me. An Antari's blood is more rare than any dragon."

[thebloodtraitor]

There are magical things of all sorts, Sirius knows. Kell isn't wrong. But no dragons so far as he's aware. And he's fairly sure there's no wand maker to recreate what he's lost.

Or perhaps there is and he's simply had no need to search them out until now.

"Yours?" Sirius replies then, eyes widening at the suggestion. There's no denying that Kell is a magical thing, and precious, but Sirius has never heard of using blood of any sort before, human or otherwise. He knows of hairs and feathers and heartstrings and he remembers at least reading about bone in one or two, but blood? How might such a thing alter his magic? Would it even work at all?

It's a compelling thought if nothing else.

"Do you know of any wand makers?" he asks, sitting up a bit straighter, the idea enough to momentarily pull him out of his melancholy before he quickly shakes his head. "No, of course not. Why would you? Harry's little shop might have books, though. And I know it has wands, just not my wand."