He was at the hospital wing at five minutes to nine on the first Tuesday of term.
Madam Pomfrey was already there, which was not a surprise — she had the quality of someone who was always already there, as though the hospital wing's operating state was continuous and she simply became visible within it at relevant moments. She was reviewing a chart at the far end of the ward, and she looked up when he came in with the specific assessment she gave everyone who entered: a swift, professional inventory that began at the top and moved to the feet and registered more than it appeared to.
'Mr. Weasley,' she said. 'On time I see.'
'You said not to be late,' he said.
Something in her expression acknowledged this without commenting on it. She set down the chart and crossed to the examination area — the section of the ward near the supply cabinets, where a plain table and two chairs had been arranged with the specific purposefulness of a space set up for work rather than recovery.
'Professor McGonagall forwarded your theory assessment,' she said, settling into the chair that faced the table rather than the one beside it — the healer's position. 'I have read them. However before we discuss the practical arrangement I want to personally confirm your actual standard. I must be able to know I can rely on you.'
'Of course,' he said, and sat down.
What followed was not a conversation so much as a structured examination conducted in the manner of a practitioner who had very little patience for performance and a great deal of interest in accuracy.
She asked him about diagnostic spell work — the theory, the sequence, the things the results could and could not tell you.
She asked about wound treatment, triage priority, the specific constraints of magical medicine administered without a full St. Mungo's infrastructure.
She produced a set of scenarios — a student found unresponsive in a corridor; a potions accident with two people affected simultaneously; a bone fracture with nerve involvement — and asked him, for each one, what he would do first, and why, and what he would not do.
He answered correctly. He knew he answered correctly because her expression did not change, which was Madam Pomfrey's version of confirmation.
After forty minutes she sat back.
'Your theoretical standard is as described,' she said. 'In some areas it is higher than described, which I am choosing to take as modesty rather than inaccuracy.' She looked at him over the edge of the chart she had been annotating. 'You are missing practical hours. Supervised casting on actual patients — diagnostic, restorative, the interventions that require a living body rather than a theory text to perform correctly. No amount of reading substitutes for this.'
'I know,' he said. 'That's why I wrote.'
She made a small sound that was not quite agreement but was adjacent to it. 'Tuesday evenings as I agreed in my letter,' she said. 'Seven to nine. We will work through a structured practical curriculum.' She paused. 'However.'
He waited.
'Your standard is sufficient that Tuesday evenings alone will not make efficient use of the level you are already at. I am proposing an addition: Saturday mornings, nine to one. Practical ward work — not the curriculum sessions, but supervised clinical practice. You will assist with actual cases under my direction. Students come in on weekends. There is always work to be done.' She looked at him steadily. 'This is not an offer I make routinely. I am making it because you are not a routine case and treating you as one would be a waste of both our time.'
He looked at her. This was — more than he had expected, and he had expected more than the letter had offered. 'I accept,' he said. 'Thank you.'
'Don't thank me,' she said briskly. 'The Saturday sessions begin today. Wash your hands. There's a second-year with a Transfiguration accident in bay three who needs a proper bone-knit charm and whose attending professor has asked me to handle it, which means you are going to watch the technique before I let you do anything yourself.' She was already moving. 'Keep up, Mr. Weasley.'
He kept up.