Before long I was left home alone. Sitting on the sofa in the sitting room, I took out the holographic artefact, committed the current project to memory thoroughly, transferred a few nuances onto paper, and began gradually creating a new one, building up a three-dimensional image of the house step by step out of glowing lines in the air. And it was difficult. There was a very, very great deal to transfer, stage by stage, level by level. I fear there's a week's work here, taking it at a leisurely pace.
And in the evening I received a letter by owl from Smethwyck — he'd finished treating Romanova and the other poor soul, but they were in a healing sleep now, so he was expecting me at ten in the evening at Mungo's. What for? He was coming on shift, and I'd be trailing along behind him and observing everything. Anticipating my question — "Why at night, though?" — Smethwyck had written the answer in advance: "Did you think you'd landed in a fairy tale? Healers have no holidays or days off, and work at the hospital, mandatory for practice and experience, entails night shifts. So get used to it." Such is the way of things.
Before setting off for Mungo's, I looked at the progress of transferring the project into three dimensions — by the look of it not even a quarter done. Doesn't even stretch to a fifth. So I put the sphere in my rucksack, dressed comfortably but respectably, in shades of blue, slung the rucksack onto my back, and was about to set off when yet another owl flew in with a letter. It was Hermione, letting me know she'd be staying over after all. In my reply I told her I'd gone off on a night shift at Mungo's.
Leaving our parents' house, I stepped a little to the side, habitually and without a second thought concealed myself with magic, and Apparated into the dead-end alley behind the Leaky Cauldron, opening the passage at once. A familiar action, honed to automatism. Of course, in case of urgent need, nothing would stop me from Apparating straight onto Diagon Alley, but it's still worth limiting such overt displays of magic. Otherwise those who know me, and whom I've crossed there, or whose lives I've spoiled in some other way, will see, immediately write a report to the proper authorities, and it'll begin… An underage wizard performing magic, after all — must punish him with the full severity of the law.
On the way to Mungo's, when the light and bright signs were burning in only a single shop at so late and already dark an hour — the Weasleys' — I reflected on how I consciously limit myself in many matters, and the reason for it is the social ties I have. Were I entirely alone in this world, nothing would stop me. But there's Hermione, my parents, and Daphne too, why pretend otherwise. And so I'm obliged at least sometimes to act with an eye to the possible threat to them arising as a consequence of my actions.
Reaching Mungo's, I entered the lobby. It seems the number of patients waiting here, on the benches or not-especially-comfortable little sofas, queuing for medical assistance, depends not at all on the time of day — a wizard will always and everywhere find a way to maim himself.
Smethwyck, dressed in lime-green robes, I spotted at the reception desk together with two of his colleagues in the same attire, and I made straight for them at once. The Healer was collecting some documents.
"Master," I nodded, greeting Smethwyck.
"Ah, Mr Granger, you're right on time," he smiled. "Meet your future colleagues, Healer Adams and Healer Pearson. And this, gentlemen, is my pupil, Hector Granger, already a journeyman potioneer."
"I've heard a good deal about you," nodded the one who'd responded to the name Adams, an ordinary-looking man of about forty. "I hope you'll soon become a fully-fledged Healer. Our hospital has never been able to boast a sufficiency of qualified staff."
The second, Pearson, merely nodded, intently reading the materials in the open folder in his hands.
"Right, gentlemen, time," Smethwyck summed up. "Today we're on traumatology. First I'll show Hector the residents' room."
Smethwyck shot off from the spot, and I hurried to follow him, moving down the ground-floor corridor.
"Well then, ready to watch and take it in? You've plenty of knowledge on the magical side, and plenty of ability too, but without an understanding of how, when and where to apply it, they're meaningless."
"Ready," I nodded confidently.
The shards of memory had been ready for far greater steps than this in their lives. Or at least believed they were ready. And here — it's merely a matter of learning.
Smethwyck led me into a spacious room from which one could pass into an adjoining one. There were little sofas here, a pair of potted ficus plants in the corners, a curtained window, facing the sunny side by the look of it, a small nook for storing and "working with" food. In short, a place for rest and so on.
"Through there — the changing room," Smethwyck nodded his head towards the door to the adjoining room. "The residents' room — for pupils. Unfortunately, additions to the ranks of these very pupils won't be arriving until after Christmas and next summer."
"Don't want to take up Healing?"
"Nope," Smethwyck quietly tapped out a rhythm with his palms on his belly. "You know it yourself, they're still at Hogwarts, after all. They want either to go into the family business, or the DMLE or the Auror Office, or fetch-and-carry at the Ministry."
"Well, no one wants the fetch-and-carry."
"True enough, but who asks them, those first years?" Smethwyck smirked. "Right, don't waste time. Off to the changing room — your locker's labelled, your kit's ready. I'll wait here. Look sharp."
Nodding, I went through the room and into the changing room. Here stood rows of lockers and benches, like in your most typical changing room. And it didn't look as though there was any division by gender. Although perhaps, in the absence of any need for such a division, there isn't one? There's only the one pupil here so far, so access is open only to the men's wing? In the far corner, incidentally, there's a shower room.
Quickly finding my locker, I opened it, tossed the rucksack in, and took out the uniform — grey robes with a broad lime-green stripe along the trim. Broad enough to catch the eye at absolutely all times. There were also thin, loose grey trousers, a T-shirt. In short, something reminiscent of the medical staff's kit at an ordinary hospital, clearly implying that wearing something light beneath it was permissible. Well, I have such a thing.
Changed, I shut the locker and went out into the residents' room.
"Not bad. Quick, even."
Smethwyck jerked his head, as if to say "Follow me," and we left the residents' room.
"I once taught a lad from one of the old families. Conceit by the wagonload. And he took just as long to change."
We reached the lobby, and Smethwyck, approaching one of the closed doors, nodded to the "sister" who glanced at him — or whatever they call the junior female staff behind the reception desk here?
Inside, the office was rather spacious, decorated in neutral light colours. There was a couch with adjustable geometry, a cabinet with pull-out drawers, a tall cabinet with a mass of various potions, chairs, and a table with various instruments and artefacts. I ran my eyes quickly over all this stock — all the potions labelled, the instruments recognisable from their descriptions.
"Examination protocol," Smethwyck held out two sheets of thin parchment to me.
"I know it."
"Just in case. On my first day I forgot all the bureaucracy of this sort out of nerves. If the case is straightforward, you'll conduct it yourself."
The door opened, and a fairly young medi-witch in uniform robes led in a slightly stooped elderly wizard with a bandaged arm, handing a sheet of parchment to Smethwyck. Smethwyck instantly ran his eyes over the parchment and nodded to me.
"Good evening," I began. "Today I'm your treating colomedic, Hector Granger. Take a seat wherever you're comfortable."
"Good evening," the old man nodded glumly, glancing at my uniform. "At least someone new in this stagnant bog."
The patient, despite his age, clambered nimbly onto the couch, remaining seated on it. Smethwyck passed me the sheet of parchment, but it wasn't especially informative — just the result of the initial examination by the junior staff member.
Gathering my thoughts, I got down to it. I asked what had happened — a cauldron had exploded. Having clarified which ingredients had been used, if it wasn't a secret, I received a perfectly honest answer and, taking out my wand, cast a couple of diagnostic spells on the arm — that being precisely what the patient was complaining of.
Clarifying the ingredients was necessary in order to understand whether their residues might interact with one spell or another.
"So I," the wizard was saying, while I removed the bandage from his arm, "thought I'd take some Skele-Gro before bed, and that'd be that. Not the first time I've broken my arm, see, I know how it goes. But the potion was awful strange, and the greening too… So I didn't risk it, see."
"You did absolutely the right thing in coming to us," I examined both the swollen area and the greening around it. "Your radius and ulna are shattered, fragments have penetrated the tissue. Part of the ingredients in the mixture from the cauldron seeped in through the skin. Simply taking Skele-Gro could only have made the situation worse."
"So it wasn't for nothing I sat in the queue, eh?"
"No," I smiled. "But nothing dreadful has happened. Now I'll apply a couple of neutralisers and extract the residues of the potion's active components. However, with the bone shattered like this, I'll have to remove the fragments and regrow it with Skele-Gro, having first restored the surrounding tissue."
"Could you not, maybe, without removing it, see?" the old fellow clearly had no wish to endure the extra pain of a full bone regrowth.
"I'm afraid that with shattering like this, the bone would knit together extremely crookedly."
"So what if it's not pretty, that's nonsense, see," the old man waved it off with his good hand.
"It's not about prettiness. The deformity would be unpredictable, but clearly very considerable. You simply wouldn't be able to work your hand normally — the anatomy wouldn't allow it. So, unfortunately, for a full recovery, you'll have to bear with it."
"Eh… All right, no help for it. Remove it, then."
Turning to the cabinet, I took the vials of neutralisers, two pipettes from the disinfector-box, and, drawing up one of them, began dripping the first neutraliser onto the damaged areas of the patient's arm. Then came the turn of the second neutraliser. The greening went away, leaving the swelling and the ordinary bluish bruising.
Putting the pipettes back in the disinfector and the potions in the cabinet, I took out my wand and, with a special spell, drew the residues of the active substances to the surface, removing them with magic without a trace.
"Now I'll remove the bone fragments," with these words I extended a special arm support out from the couch, so the patient could lay his injured limb on it.
"Mm-hm."
"Brachiam Emendo," I pronounced with the corresponding flick of the wand.
The arm at once went limp. With a repeat diagnostic I made sure everything had been removed correctly, nothing unnecessary remained, nothing necessary had been touched.
"Now you need to take three drops of the strengthening and blood-replenishing potions, and four drops for the restoration of soft tissue."
Taking up the potions again, I quickly prepared the necessary mixture and got the patient to drink it down, helping the potions' work with the appropriate spell along the way. The swelling and bruising came to nothing right before our eyes.
"Now Skele-Gro."
The patient grimaced almost reflexively, and I can understand him — vile stuff, that.
In short, having got the patient to drink the Skele-Gro, I quickly drew up the receipt for services, Smethwyck certified it, and the patient, as soon as I'd applied a splint and dressing, paid for it all — inexpensive, by the way — and left.
"Not bad," Smethwyck nodded. "Simple case, true, but you weren't the least bit nervous, as though all you ever do is fuss over patients every day."
"Just good self-control, and a perfect memory lets me always know what to do, if I've encountered something similar even in theory."
"Convenient."
"Not always. Some things one could do without remembering, for an easier life."
The medi-witch led in the next patient.
This is going to be a long night, and there are still the in-patients on the ward besides. I hope nothing urgent crops up — racing off on call-outs is the last thing I need.
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