Sally-Anne Perks

SALLY-ANNE PERKS completes the St Mungo's Healing Apprenticeship programme. After a few years of working as a Healer (and getting steadily more irritated by whingey patients) she realises that this job is making her miserable, changes tracks, and goes into Healing/Medical research. One of the books she borrowed from Dolohov years ago involved some U.S.-based research where brain imaging was used to study people who were under the influence of the Imperius curse, to understand better what exactly was going on; she found the journal article about this nearly completely impenetrable but the idea of researching at the intersection of magic and science to be totally fascinating. That sort of research becomes her real life's work.

Sally-Anne and Ron live next door to Pansy and George and as their lives get busier, Pansy and Sally-Anne arrange for either a weekly breakfast date or a weekly lunch date, to avoid losing touch.

Sally-Anne holds off a decade before agreeing to have kids, initially only wants three, then agrees to a fourth since Ron would prefer to have seven. All have flaming red hair. One gets Sorted into Gryffindor like Dad, one into Slytherin like Mum, one into Ravenclaw like Nana, and one into Hufflepuff because a plague on both your houses, Mum and Dad, really.

On New Year's Eve of 2000, she stands outside with Pansy at midnight, and they watch as a muggle aeroplane buzzes her house just before the fireworks go off. The aeroplane from the potions-induced vision (which she's dreamed of several times since) is piloted by George.

SERIOUSLY?

WHY are you singing that? I can tell you're being ironic. I'm going to have it stuck in my head super ironically for DAYS.

Where do you want to go, once we're not all prisoners?

What would you like to see that we could only read about in books?

Healer Maginn wasn't able to save Cedric's leg. He amputated it below the knee and doesn't believe it will be possible to re-grow it.

Terry Boot will pull through. There will be some scarring.

We lost Colin.

Also, this didn't happen at triage, but. Remus and Sirius are also dead. They died killing Bellatrix.

Where are you?

So wherever we move has to be deep enough in Order territory that we'll feel safe, not likely to turn out to be owned by muggles who are alive and want their homes back, with low enough rent that everyone can afford to live there. We need either a building full of flats or a cluster of houses close together because while the two of us can live together just fine, Ron and George sharing a flat will eventually be a disaster. If we're all sharing a building full of flats then George and Fred will need to agree not to blow the whole place up. (Or, you know, to do experiments that might result in blowing the whole place up. I realise they would be unlikely to SET OUT to blow the place up.)

But, I mean, I want to live near you. I assume Fred will want to live near George. I think Justin and Hydra might like to live nearby, and Draco and Hermione, and maybe Susan?

Is there anyone we'd want to make sure there isn't quite enough space for?

Is there anyone who has time to find something? Our fallback is to move into the Burrow until we find something else but that's really not my first choice.

I saw you wrote to Dolohov.

I wrote to him when I thought he was dead. I wasn't very

Did he write back to you? (I assume you actually had authorisation, unlike Evelyn. And me, but I really did think he was dead. They said he was dead!)

I'm going to miss you. And I'm grateful for the help you gave me. But you should have always been on our side, always, not on His. You read muggle books, you knew perfectly well they weren't animals. You mentored half-bloods, you knew perfectly well we weren't any of us inferior, or at least, not because of our parentage. (For every idiot half-blood like Milli there's an idiot pureblood like Vince.) You knew perfectly well muggleborns like Hermione and my mother didn't steal their magic or anything else from anyone, that was always a lie.

You knew they were liars. And you knew He was a lunatic, that no one you'd ever cared about was safe from Him and neither were you. You knew that for YEARS. If you'd come over, if you'd joined us, if we could have TRUSTED you, maybe Harry wouldn't have had to die. Maybe there'd have been some other way.

I'm not glad you're gone. But I'm glad you won't be able to kill any more of the people I care about, either yourself or with the Inferi you made. (INFERI. Because apparently it wasn't JUST Voldemort that could get you to violate all the things you supposedly believe, expediency and Bellatrix would do the trick as well. Pretty much all adults are hypocrites, though, so that shouldn't surprise me.)

Anyway. I guess you'll be able to pass on my messages to Harry and Neville in person. Good luck with whatever happens in the afterlife.

I hope if I ever see you again, next time we'll be on the same side.

How goes the bartending?

All my favourite drinks are the sweet fizzy kind, the one where you almost can't even taste the alcohol. Didn't sound like those were mostly what people at the Elysian order.

They've moved me to the night shift in the infirmary so now I'm going to be awake and asleep at completely the wrong times. Last night was my first night. I'd have thought night shift would be quiet but NOPE. Just as busy as day but in different ways. I'm supposed to wake a senior Healer if anything dire turns up, obviously, but everyone seems to think I can be trusted to check record sheets before handing out sleeping potions.

Anyway I hope things are going well so far.

Dolohov passed along a message last night that he said was from you. And it sounded like you, so that's good, because it means you're still alive. And maybe he'll let you read your journal, so I thought I would write to you.

Your brothers and mum have been writing to you but they're all Gryffindors and sometimes Gryffindors are idiots. (I don't actually know what they said. I'm just making assumptions based on a lot of prior exposure to Gryffindors.) So here's the input you'll get from a Slytherin: do whatever you need to do to survive. Our job to is rescue you. Your job is getting through this alive. That's really your only job. Just stay focused on that.