Monotonous situations with consequences varying in severity — that's what a shift in the traumatology intake amounts to.
No, of course, the visual manifestations, and the injuries themselves, can be utterly different, but the procedure for all of them is absolutely identical — establishing the ingredients employed by the luckless potioneer, neutralising them and flushing them from the body, and after that — treating the injuries themselves.
And what manifestations of failed experiments I didn't see over this shift. Fractures, deformities, hypertrophy or atrophy of tissues and organs, their partial or full Transfiguration into something absurd. And there's no need even to mention the various sorts of changes to the skin, from a banal reddening to something resembling gangrene, or outright melting of the tissue.
Closer to morning, one of the in-patients on the ward suffered a hypertensive crisis. Nothing dreadful, in truth, but Smethwyck was called, and I came tagging along.
"What've we got?" Smethwyck asked his colleague as we hurried up the stairs.
"The charms showed a sharp rise in blood pressure, my colleague came rushing at once. The patient was awake, and Summers hastily began conducting diagnostics and laying out the treatment. While he was off fetching potions, the patient's condition changed…"
We had just reached the right doors and went inside. A ward of about ten beds, some of which were entirely screened off by partitions. Only beside one of them was a wizard in lime-green robes busying himself, and on the bed itself lay an excessively well-fed patient.
Smethwyck set to the diagnostics at once, questioning his colleague Summers along the way about what on earth was going on here, and why a patient with a hypertensive crisis looked more like a zombie in the face, with his pallor, the blueness under his eyes, and the sunkenness of his features. I, meanwhile, having taken note of all this, spotted the wakeful neighbour in the ward — he was sitting on the adjacent bed in a pyjama suit, watching his fellow sufferer with concern.
"Did he take anything after the Healer's visit?" I asked him.
"Eh? Yeah… Rustled with something, a sort of metallic sound, ate it and washed it down."
"Hm…"
I quickly went over to the chest of drawers beside our patient's bed and, opening a drawer, began searching for something. I don't know what exactly, possibly tablets.
"Hector, got a thought?" Smethwyck glanced at me, but it seemed he'd already learned of the patient's current state and had taken some elongated little phial of potion out from under his robes.
"Yes…" I'd found several blister packs of different preparations. The only one opened was captopril. "Looks as though he took a Muggle hypotensive preparation, an ACE inhibitor."
Smethwyck nodded, pressed on the patient's jaw with one hand, and dripped a couple of drops of potion from a pipette.
"Looks as though it isn't the patient's first encounter with high blood pressure of his own, judging by his age and excess weight."
"Muggle ones…" Summers grimaced. "I didn't account for the like."
"And you should have," Smethwyck snorted. "His history clearly states he's Muggle-born and battling hypertension. It's logical to assume the methods of battling it are theirs too. And so he mixed potions and preparations to the point that the patient collapsed, crashing his own pressure, having taken fright at the crisis. Be glad it wasn't a beta-blocker."
"During a hypertensive crisis a number of hormones are produced that provoke agitation and fear, up to surges of adrenaline and a panic attack," I nodded, watching the patient's face quickly return to normal. "Bustle and tense activity beside such a patient are unacceptable."
"Teach me some more, why don't you," Summers was displeased, but immediately shook his head. "Sorry, couldn't help myself."
"Clinical psychology," I shrugged, "nothing new."
"Right, the rest is up to you," Smethwyck made sure all was well. "I've brought him out of the pre-infarction state, flushed out the excess chemistry too. Watch his pressure, and… Take his Muggle preparations away from him. Or he'll mix something up again, and they're barely diagnosable by magic — experience is needed there."
This situation too turned out to be simple, but it reminded me of one case from memory, whose I don't know. There was once an old woman lying in the ward, preparing for an operation on… that I don't recall. In short, an old woman with hypertension, which meant her pressure needed stabilising over a couple of days. And they gave her the preparations, looked at her test results, all well and good, but the pressure wouldn't drop, wouldn't stabilise. The operation was looming, something had to be done. Someone among the medical staff noticed that the relatives kept bringing the old woman food, and decided to check what the old woman was treating herself to, varying the table and diet prescribed for her. And the problem turned up at once — pickled cucumbers, the blighters. The old woman was awfully fond of them, as it turned out, and the pickled cucumbers, or rather the salt, were what kept the pressure from being lowered and stabilised despite the preparations.
"Hm…"
"What are you hm-ing about?" Smethwyck asked me as we were returning to the intake — there was next to nothing left of the shift.
"Just thinking that a patient is always ready to pull some stunt or other to do himself in despite all your efforts."
"There's that. And they always lie, too. Incidentally, if you think there won't be at least a small personal graveyard behind your back — you're mistaken. Anyone, sooner or later, will kill one of his patients."
"Inspiring."
"It's medicine, dear boy. As all-powerful as magic is, just as imperfect is man. And we all make mistakes. Take that very patient we're walking away from. I'm certain he knows you shouldn't mix various potions with various Muggle preparations. The effect can be unpredictable. But he was too embarrassed to tell the colomedics about it. Or feared their opinion on the matter. Or another thousand and one reasons that might seem incredibly significant to a patient."
After the shift, Smethwyck and I set off to his home to bring Romanova and the other unfortunate out of their sleep. I wasn't counting on much from the impending conversation, but in the end I got nothing at all — their memories are blank for the period of "subjugation."
We sat at the table opposite one another in a small sitting room. Smethwyck was on his guard, and even his absolute certainty in the complete cure of these two didn't allow him to relax. Just in case. Romanova held a mug of hot chocolate with both hands, in the aroma of which one could detect notes of some interesting spices, while the lad simply sat in mild shock.
"I don't even know…" the young woman said, turning the mug in her hands. "I remember setting off on a mission with the other trainees of our Auror Office, and then… It all just sank away."
"Auror Office?"
"Family tradition. Either ten years in the Auror Office, or military service."
And however we tried to find out at least something, it was all in vain — they have no memory of the time of their "subjugation," and let the grass not grow for all they care! Smethwyck confirmed they weren't dissembling — he has some methods of his own. The lad, incidentally, had dropped out of life for four years, while Romanova only for half a year — she'd been lucky still.
So we sent them on their way. Romanova assured me she was very, very much in my debt now, and the money for the treatment would be sent on once she returned home, and that was not up for discussion.
"And what will you do now?"
"Search for the guilty, naturally," she nodded confidently, as the three of us — I, the young woman, and Smethwyck — stood by a small grove from which she'd be Apparating. The lad had already "flown off," promising to repay us with something for the help and giving his contacts should help be needed by us.
"You're sure?"
"It's personal now. Only this time I'll be more careful."
And then I returned home. And no, I didn't set about continuing to transfer the house plans into three dimensions with the artefact then and there — I simply crashed out to sleep. And waking in the evening and going downstairs, led by the aromas of food, I sat straight down at the table in the dining room.
"Awake?" Hermione was finishing up with her culinary endeavours, getting ready to set the table. Unpretentious dishes, simple, but tasty and filling. At least, if the aromas were to be believed.
"Yep. Good… time of day."
"Evening."
Over supper she watched me with curiosity, and in the end I couldn't hold back the question:
"What?"
"No, nothing," my little sister shook her head. "It's just unfamiliar, you sleeping in the day, waking in the evening."
"This is nothing yet," I snorted. "The practice under Smethwyck promises to be intensive. And night shifts, or twenty-four-hour ones, no one's abolished those."
"You treat people yourself?"
"If the case isn't especially complex."
"And are there many such?"
"Yes."
The first days of practice passed roughly along these lines — the practice itself, sleep at home, food, a little theory if Smethwyck deemed it necessary, and practice again. Then, a week later, Smethwyck went off to "show" me the work in the second department. In essence, traumatology too, but owing to the specifics of the magical world, the department of Injuries from Living Creatures is quite distinctive, as is the field of medicine itself.
There too I saw a fair amount — magical creatures can inflict an astonishingly wide spectrum of injuries, combining poisonings, curses, and magical effects of varying severity. And I won't even mention the ordinary bodily injuries that accompany such things. It was interesting.
They let me go to all four winds, with a "So you rest before Hogwarts," a week before the first of September. Naturally, the first thing I did was invite Daphne for a walk somewhere, at long last, since the correspondence and brief meetings in the garden of their house under the indignant gaze of Daphne's father, hiding behind a curtain like a little boy… Well, it was somehow not serious. And the first stop became, strangely enough, Diagon Alley.
"Curious," I broke off for a moment from the pleasant calm of strolling arm in arm with this brunette.
"Curious how, exactly?"
"It's become somehow livelier here, I'd say."
"You go to Mungo's every day for practice, and you've only just noticed it now?" Daphne smiled a little, preferring more restraint in public. Restraint, not concealment of all emotion. And I note once again how very much I'm drawn to precisely this type.
"Well, I'm here either early in the morning or late in the evening. And to encounter anything besides a scrap of wrapping paper flying along in the wind or some sot from Knockturn is extremely difficult."
"But you're right," Daphne nodded, surveying the throngs of wizards and the bright signs of the little shops. "It's becoming lively and vibrant again here. Even if not as it was in the first years. Incidentally, did you know they've made Muggle Studies a compulsory special course?"
"No," I was a touch surprised. "Propaganda, will it be?"
"By all appearances."
It was interesting information, but I didn't much want to dwell on it.
"Come on, tell me, how are you finding it under your godfather's tutelage?"
"Not easy…"
We strolled, talked of various things, saw the rare acquaintance from Hogwarts stocking up for the coming school year — there were few such, many having made their purchases in the first days of August, as I gathered. But we ourselves bought a few odds and ends for school as well, after which we set off into the Muggle world. Not onto the first street we came across, filled with cars and people, of course — a stroll purely through beautiful spots. And in the evening — a view of London from one of the little balconies of Big Ben, where ordinary people are forbidden entry. And unordinary ones too.
"Curiosity is eating away at me, and you don't brag of it yourself," Daphne stood beside me, holding my hand, leaning against my shoulder. "How are things with the house?"
"With the practice under your godfather — there's not so much time. Want me to show you the project?"
"I hope you don't carry miles of parchment with drawings about with you?"
"No," I smiled. "It's a little simpler."
Taking out the artefact-sphere, similar to the one I'd given Daphne, I activated it, summoning a three-dimensional illusion of the nearly finished house — part of the second floor and the roof were missing as yet.
"You don't trouble yourself with trifles," the young woman noted in surprise, rotating the projection with gestures, enlarging the moments that interested her.
"You thought I'd build something small and insignificant."
"There would have been sense in it. Gradually, little by little, from lesser to greater as opportunity allowed."
"I don't wish to brag, but my means allow me to skip the 'lesser' stage."
Daphne asked with interest whether I'd planned out the purposes of the rooms, enthusiastically offering her own variants. And when I said there was no interior at all, and I was counting on her help in this matter, some hellish little spark flashed in her blue eyes. I have a feeling she'll let herself go in grand style here. No doubt she'll also drag the female part of her acquaintances into the matter, Astoria or Pansy. Or her mother…
So passed the evening, after which I, having seen Daphne to the door of her house, in the windows of which I once again saw the displeased visage of her father, his gaze expressing a certain resignation to the situation, returned home, where Hermione had already set the table. Over supper each of us recounted our day — an ordinary sort of family setting, even if of just two people.
"Still, it seems to me Daphne's with you for purely mercenary motives."
"Suppose she is."
"What do you mean, 'suppose she is'? What about love, feelings, all that sort of…" Hermione waved her hands vaguely in the air.
"Those are there too, and they're a pleasant addition to a considered decision."
"I think that's wrong."
"Perhaps. However, the statistics of British scientists," I smirked at my little turn of phrase, "show that relationships whose foundation is not mad love and passion, but mutual respect, a drop of calculation, sound judgement and forethought, are the most durable. And what love, exactly, are you talking about? A momentary youthful attraction? Or something eternal, complex, that unconditional fidelity…"
"Just don't go quoting Sir Dagworth-Granger," my little sister smiled. "I've read his ancient works too."
"Well, that very love is the sum of all the above, mixed in with biochemical compatibility. That's why it happens not nearly as often as one would like. But believe me, Daphne and I have that as well. It's just that both she and I controlled ourselves well, so as not to plunge into it headlong from the first minutes. Now, though, it's an excellent addition to the rest. To me personally it's obvious."
"All right. That's it, I give up. It's all — your decisions."
"Hallelujah!"
"Hector!"
The remaining week before classes I spent ringing up various firms supplying building materials, or visiting various shops in person, buying up a little of everything that was specified in the project's estimate. Without studying, knowing and understanding the specific materials, it's extremely difficult to Transfigure them, so one has to occupy oneself with such things. Nor did I forget about finishing the transfer of the house plans. One thing alone saddened me — I definitely wouldn't manage it before Hogwarts, and there'd be classes there, and the obvious problems that might arise, and the practice under Smethwyck. But we shall not fear difficulties, shall we? I'd worked towards this myself, after all.
So on the first of September I stood on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, looking at the wizards and witches, picking out my coursemates, and ready to set off for my sixth year. A pity, though, that Justin had withdrawn his papers — a decent lad. But one has to take that with understanding, for he too has his own obligations to his family, and the compulsory schooling, as a Muggle-born, he'd completed.
"Hey, hello!" Ernie came to stand beside me, having barely shaken off his relatives. "How are things?"
"Couldn't be better."
"You look like a statue of yourself."
"A monument, maybe?"
"No, mate, a statue precisely. A monument expresses grandeur, while you've just frozen and are staring blankly into space."
"Pondering the complexities of life."
Hannah and Susan hurried over to us, two graven idols in school uniform and Hufflepuff robes, also dressed according to the dress code. And rightly so, better to dress straight away than to fret about it in the carriages.
"Hello, you lot," Susan was the first to greet us, somewhat taller and slimmer, though I hadn't thought she or anyone else among our peers would gain in height, even a little.
"Hello, girls."
"And where's Zacharias?" Hannah asked at once. "We've been here a good while, haven't seen him yet, and boarding's soon."
"He's coming through Hogsmeade with his relatives," Ernie answered. "They've some sort of trouble there."
"All right, let's board, or there'll be no seats," I headed for the carriages, and the others followed me.
"As if you'd be the one to worry about that. You're a prefect, after all," Ernie smirked.
"It's precisely as a prefect that I'm showing concern."
A compartment was found fairly quickly, the others settled in there, and Hannah and I went off through the carriages, having first made sure our prefect badges were in their proper place.
"Hermione was saying you all had a most curious summer," Hannah remarked as if in passing, tucking a strand of straight blonde hair behind her ear. "A lot of interesting things happened…"
"And what's the right answer?"
"A detailed one?"
"I'm afraid I'm not a reporter for the Gossip Today paper, so, alas and alack, you girls will have to dig up your rumours elsewhere."
"Woe and sorrow."
Walking through the carriages, we made sure everyone was all right, and if not all right, then at least within acceptable limits. It was amusing to see the just-arriving first-years hiding their wands the moment they caught sight of us. And so we reached the prefects' compartment, where everyone had already gathered in full. Except the Weasley.
The same already-seen, familiar opulent furnishings, cabinets with books, dinner services and other trinkets, comfortable armchairs and sofas, and coursemates upon them.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I nodded to everyone with a smile, heading for the sofa, on one side of which sat an unusually serious Malfoy, who'd flatly ignored the dress code and was sitting in a black suit with a black turtleneck beneath it.
"Granger," he nodded, continuing to stare gravely into space.
"Malfoy."
Parkinson was here too, standing by the window and musing on lofty matters. Or perhaps on base ones — who knows what's in the head of that rather fidgety and busy creature? Hannah went over to her, and they struck up a conversation about something. The Ravenclaws had found books in the cabinet that were new to them, and Hermione was noting something down on parchment.
"Everyone's so busy. And you, Malfoy, have toughened up over the summer."
"Didn't drop dead, thank Merlin."
"Was there cause?"
"There was opportunity."
"Will you tell me?"
"No."
"Suit yourself. And where's the Weasley?"
"What's the difference?" Draco shrugged, showing no reaction whatsoever.
Such was the atmosphere reigning in the prefects' compartment when the train set off. Well then, the journey promises to be a long one.
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