The renovation of my new office is almost finished, only the final touches remain. I like how it turned out, the room is conditionally divided into two zones—for work and for rest. In the work area there's my desk, a bookcase with documents and medicines, a ritual circle for initial diagnostics, in the rest zone there are comfortable sofas and armchairs, a floor lamp, a soft carpet on the floor, a small table with a bowl of fruit under stasis. In a large pot grows a magical palm tree grown for me by Neville. He calls it something else, but you can't pronounce it. The main thing is that this plant calms patients, absorbs excess harmful energy and can survive anything. Possibly even a nuclear explosion, but we're not going to test that.
Last week one particularly malicious curse got out of control during a patient's treatment. Two floors of the hospital were thoroughly destroyed, seven people were seriously injured. That's exactly why my unkillable palm and I now have a new office.
I successfully finished medical school and after several years of failed attempts invented a ritual that replaces cancer cells with healthy ones over a couple of months. But I work as a healer, not an oncologist. So as not to create a threat to the Statute of Secrecy, my results must be no better than other successful doctors. And that means I couldn't provide full help to some of my patients. I can't save everyone in the world, and my head doesn't hurt about it. But any doctor is obligated to treat their own patients as best as possible, otherwise they're a lousy doctor. And to choose who lives and who doesn't, to have the ability to save many and consciously not do it... no, that's not for me.
Therefore officially I work at St. Nicholas Hospital, in the work of a healer knowledge from two worlds is a great help. And the mastery I gained in mentalism is a great help in diagnosis. Wizards easily allow a doctor to get into their heads—they have a different attitude toward this. Sometimes I treat ordinary people. From time to time I arrange a small Christmas (or non-Christmas) miracle for a terminally ill child. My little unofficial patients are treated by different doctors and this doesn't attract extra attention. But my main work is in the magical world.
I heard some noise outside the door and went to see what was going on. Two repairmen were arguing about how best to hang the sign on my door, on eternal sticking charms or on adhesive potion. The sign read: "Hermione Meles. Head of the Mentalism Department."
I met Robert Meles thanks to Professor Flitwick. Filius decided, as he said, to shake up the old days and participate in the world dueling championship. And since the championship was held in France, he suggested I sign up as a duty healer, watch the competitions for free and chat with my former professor. Even though I signed up well in advance, I barely made it. I'm not the only smart one. The dueling championship is one of the most spectacular events in the magical world, and tickets for good seats are very expensive. So doctors take advantage of the opportunity to watch the competitions of the best duelists for free—a freebie is a freebie even for wizards.
Robert Meles fell victim to a bone-breaking curse, and while I hastily patched up his chest, shoulder and right arm, he told me that I had stunningly beautiful eyes, and he himself was a ritualist and decided to participate to have a good time and have fun. Connecting the small fragments of his ribs, I agreed with a smile that the entertainment was a success. Although, judging by his answering happy smile, he really thought so, without any irony. After all, all wizards are a bit crazy and have a cavalier attitude toward bodily integrity. But since I'm a witch myself, and perhaps for other reasons, if a man is a little bit, just a tiny bit crazy, I even like it. Although as a healer, I don't approve of a cavalier attitude toward one's health.
Rob courted me very beautifully, and also we both turned out to have unsuccessful experience with relationships with ordinary people behind us. Once he saved a non-magical woman from hooligans and fell in love with this sweet girl. And the girl fell in love with her savior, which is not surprising. The first few years she was delighted with magic, and then she started getting irritated, suspecting something, getting nervous and making scenes with or without reason—well, it's not a fact that everything was exactly like that. These details were told to me by my mother-in-law, and sometimes mothers-in-law like to attribute extra sins to daughters-in-law. Rob himself only said that there were difficulties because of magic.
I fell in love very quickly with this smart, strong, amazing man. I didn't expect such strong feelings from myself. I probably couldn't tell about it beautifully. It's interesting to listen to stories where lovers experience ups and downs, suffer from doubts and jealousy, swing on emotional swings from disbelief that everything will work out to overwhelming happiness... But everything worked out for us somehow too unambiguously well and happily.
We married with a magical ritual and my acceptance into the family—oh gods, it was something. Contact with family magic is... like a prolonged orgasm! Like the strongest drug! Except this drug doesn't destroy the body, but makes it magically stronger. Now my tongue will definitely never turn to say that family magic is pure-blood inventions for extra pomp, as Grandpa Dumbledore taught.
A month after the wedding we didn't get out of bed—it's hard to do when you lose your head from any touch. Then we still learned to at least temporarily tear ourselves away from each other, but I'll definitely never get tired of sex with my husband. And just being nearby, listening to his voice, touching, looking at him, feeling his magic...
My husband gave me a personal house-elf. More precisely, the elf Darcy. Elves are still amazing creatures. Darcy adores me as if I'm the light in her window and the embodiment of all the joy of life, and to hear my thank you is the greatest happiness. Despite the fact that I've long wanted an elf, at first I was uncomfortable with such concentrated love, I had to remind myself that elves can't be judged by human standards. Besides, they have some free will, if you remember Kreacher and Dobby. And Darcy loves me quite voluntarily.
The only thing that slightly overshadows my happiness now is that in a few years we'll have to part with Philip for nine months a year. I'm somehow the wrong kind of witch in this regard, I just can't come to terms with the fact that this is normal. At first I thought my son would go to Beauxbatons and we could see each other on weekends. But it turned out that his family gifts left us no choice: ritualism and battle magic from dad, and mentalism from mom. With such a set—only Durmstrang. Ehh...
***
Recently Rob met Harry. Harry was cursed, and so powerfully that the hospital couldn't help him, he had to turn to a master ritualist. I can't say that Harry was a completely innocent victim. Sirius after finishing Hogwarts managed to place his godson as an apprentice to Rajesh Patil. Patil taught Harry not so much for money as out of considerations that after receiving mastery in artificing Harry would make Parvati or Padma Mrs. Potter. And Harry really did get engaged and courted Parvati for several years, while simultaneously shagging everything that moves. Well, who would have thought that Harry—that shy disheveled sparrow I once met—would become a fatal man with many broken female hearts to his name.
The bride knew nothing, enjoyed life and planned the wedding, but Harry unexpectedly declared that Parvati was a beauty and every normal man's dream, but he wasn't ready to get married yet, it's such a responsibility and in general... What "in general" was—they didn't manage to find out, Parvati burst into tears, broke Harry's wand—that very one, the Elder Wand, which he took from Aberforth—and in her hearts cursed Potter so that no one could uncurse him for several months. The curse wasn't deadly and didn't cause pain, after all, Parvati is a very kind girl. Nine out of ten witches in such a case would have imposed something much more unpleasant. But this kind girl is a hereditary cursebreaker, so her curse, unlike the curses of those same nine out of ten witches, can't be removed so simply. When cursed Harry touched even a finger to a female, a powerful bass "Ba-a-a-a-a!" came from his mouth. This Don Juan's entire personal life went to hell.
To tell the truth, it was very funny. While Robert was drawing a ritual circle specifically for Potter's case, I pestered Harry with suggestions to hug, to which my friend heartily sent me to Mordred.
During the ritual interesting details surfaced. The curse itself was fed through a residual magical connection with Parvati, and as a side effect it was revealed what other connections Harry had. Among others a connection with the dead Voldemort was discovered. And this was no connection from the Avada, as we had previously assumed. My husband didn't say then that we were ignoramuses, but it was clearly readable in his look. And unfortunately, he's right. I've long understood that education at Hogwarts is worthless, graduates have to catch up on their own, "sometime and somehow." The connection with Voldemort was the most banal—the connection of the family head with the last of the line. The Slytherins and Potters are relatives through the Peverells, and Harry became the last of the line at the moment when Voldemort killed James. The head of the family can communicate telepathically with the heir if he knows Legilimency. Not all pure-blood wizards use this ability because Legilimency is a complicated thing, even given that with a family connection it's much easier. For attempting to kill Harry, Voldemort got a backlash. If he'd had a whole soul, it wouldn't have knocked him out of his body—he would have been sick for a month and recovered. But he's his own evil Pinocchio. Lily didn't need to give her life for Harry at all. James never inducted her into the family, their marriage was purely ministerial. If Voldemort had simply immobilized her, the curse would have bounced off the child just as successfully.
Good thing Rob didn't voice this in front of Harry.
By the way, Potter and I became business partners. His training in artificing didn't go to waste, and we invented a medical artifact together. It tracked the patient's condition, and if the bracelet's owner lost consciousness, or the ability to move, or lost a lot of blood, or felt severe pain, fear, disorientation, the artifact transported them to the hospital and sent a notification to the duty doctor. The Ministry of England decided that every schoolchild and Auror should have such a useful thing. Schoolchildren were teleported to Hogwarts hospital wing, Aurors to St. Mungo's. The French Ministry decided nothing, but many Beauxbatons students themselves wanted to buy such a useful thing. Ordinary citizens also sometimes order such bracelets. In general, we earn well from these things.
Sometimes I remember my combat past. Merlin, how many times everything could have fallen apart and gone to Mordred, despite all my foreknowledge of canon. I walked on the edge and got out purely through luck, although I could have quietly sat and not stuck my neck out. But now I don't regret anything. Although, it's easy not to regret when everything ended well. But then—why did I sometimes so desperately rush into danger? Perhaps magic is involved again here. As I've already said, all wizards are a bit nutty. And gifts largely determine the direction in which a wizard is nutty. I was still lucky, I, as a healer, excessively want to help people—not the most terrible trait. But battle mages often can't restrain their desire to have a good fight, sometimes for the most insignificant reason. They often have to suppress their impulses, because unlike mine, their impulses are prosecuted by law. Some of my patients come with precisely this problem—to correct the influence of the family gift (which acts even stronger than personal gifts) on the psyche.
Or maybe I'm wrongly blaming magic for everything and I'm crazy on my own? Although, what's the difference? I wonder, what did that shaman actually do with Dumbledore's spirit?