Who is the real Padma Patil? A Cold selfish bitch? That's what Parvati thinks, especially now that it seems she's split up her marriage to Seamus Finnigan. But no, Padma's just your ordinary intern Healer at St. Mungo's. She likes men and she likes a good martini. Oh, and she likes a suave Auror named Harrison.

But when a mysterious dying warlock leaves in her care a green brooch of extraordinary power, Padma is drawn into a world she never thought possible. Taking on flaky boyfriends and a snarky boss, that's difficult. Taking on a secret cult of elemental wizards with intent on resurrecting the lost soul of Morgan Le Fey? Now that's just pushing it.

Chapter 1

Breakfast at Tiffany's Ward

Wizard bodies take much longer to decay than Muggle bodies. At healing school they tell you it's the blood in our veins, the magic that holds us together. Magic you see, never dies with its host like the flesh and blood do. Much like energy, magic cannot be destroyed only transformed. So I've always felt comfortable in Healer Tiffany's Morgue, as the bodies are so much easier to talk to when they only look asleep.

With croissant and piping hot cappachino in hand I pulled up a seat next to the examination board and dug in, savouring the melted cheese and fresh ham swirling in my mind. Diet be damned I thought in my mind. Decent food can never be ignored.

"Isn't that right Mr. Keltone?" I shouted with my mouth stuffed. Mr. Ketone's body dutifully responded with an affirmative silence from the opposite rack. Unfortunately for Mr. Ketone however, his ife had packed just a little extra into his morning omlette, and the next thing he knew he was having frantic healers trying to pump Gryffin Blood Extract from his dissolving intestines.

With a sigh I took a swig from my coffee and laid my head on the table, simultaneously trying to stay awake, whilst desiring to go back to bed.

"Padma how many times do I have to say it, twenty-seven hours shifts aren't healthy."

"Until Susan stops trying to get me to call my sister." I grumbled into the table. While I loved my Freddy dearly, he always seemed to turn up right when I wanted some quaint alone time with my deceased friends. Trouble was, he was as socially screwed as I was.

Freddy promptly sat on the table and took to nibbling at my croissant; not bothering to ask, just taking advantage of my inability to yell at him. Freddy, with his messy brown hair and affection for carroty orange undershirts was perhaps my only friend in this Merlin-forsaken medical centre, and he almost never let me forget it.

"Oh, so is Bones trying to act as the negotiator is she? Is she missing Parvati's home-baked steak and kidney's like me?"

I rolled my eyes and attempted to lift my head from the table. I failed miserably and continued to speak into the cold marble. "Susan's a twat."

Freddy munched on the croissant, now with out any care to my unfulfilled hunger. "Yeah, but she's a twat with a V.I.P. pass to all the best parties in London." I couldn't argue with that one. Susan Bones, my roommate since we'd left Hogwarts had connections in high places, and always made sure when Saturday came around we had martinis in hand and a fairly hunky fellow on either side.

"And you can't blame her for wanting to patch you guys up, her and Parvati do work together at the Ministry, and it must be pretty uncomfortable Susan can never invite her over without casusing…awkwardness."

"Oh and you're the supreme warlock of the awkwardness council are you now? I faintly remember you haven't given a particular junior intern healer a single glance since you screwed in the potion's cabinet." I snapped abruptly. Freddy waved a hand in feigned disinterest, but I could see his cheeks were bright pink in embarrasment.

"That's completely different and you know it. We both had had a few Firewhiskys, and….well we share nothing in common…"

"Have you even spoken to her about interests other than taking strange men downtown?" I demanded.

"That's not the point…" Freddy muttered through gritted teeth, "The point I'm trying to make is that maybe if you just called Parvati, I mean she can't really be mad at you for all this time, not after all this time. Not after she knows."

I pushed myself away from the table and began to straighten out my depressingly ratty appearance in the nearby mirror. "She knows, but it doesn't mean she's actually considered what it means. She refuses to believe that Seamus is who he is, she still thinks I pushed him away."

"What, into Dean Thomas's arms? She still can't seriously think you and Seamus were having an affair?"

I pulled my wand out and gave it a quick spit shine to return it to the gleam I obsessively maintained. I was well over this discussion, the main reason I spent little time at home was to avoid it. "My sister has been this blind to reality since we were kids. A Blast Ended Skrewt could have seen Seamus was banging on the closet door since Hogwarts. But Parvati is so damn up herself. And I won't say sorry."

Freddy let out a long sigh and ran his hand through his messy hair, a habit which usually amused me, as his hair would never relent in being straight. "Let's just go save some lives." he said after a moment, and put an arm around my shoulder. "I think tonight we need to go and get totally plastered. I mean like knickers and pants in the air, off-our-faces. Whaddya reckon?"

"And all that jazz baby, and all that jazz." I chuckled as we trucked out of the morgue and off to the scary world of live bodies.

I'm usually a bubbly person. Don't get a bad impression of me early on, because I'm really a nice optimistic Scorpio. This week has just been extraordinarily crappy. Actually, this last year has been utterly frog spawn.

It started, as most things do with me, with my heart. You see, throughout most of my life, I've kept my heart to myself, letting out only bits and pieces to boys in meaningless flirtation, and (later) meaningless sex. I never understood other girls fascination and desire for 'relationships'. It all seemed rather blasé and square to be honest. I enjoyed my freedom my ability to be spontaneous. If anything, it was this sense of independence that got me through the war and all the nonsense that followed it.

My twin sister Parvati on the other hand, well she lost her heart a couple of years ago in my opinion, but is desperately flinging whatever's left at anyone who'll take it. She clings. She's needy. Which isn't to say she is a pathetic person, who isn't worth getting in a relationship with. Its just….she wants to go from kissing to walking down the aisle if you know what I mean. I've tried to get her to relax, to enjoy her attractiveness and let it take the wheel for a little while, but she insists on dates and long term arrangements.

Anywho, my sister finally met who she thought was the perfect guy, or more accurately 're-met' him, during a trip to Gringotts. Seamus Finnigan, the sandy haired Celt from Hogwarts became her new boyfriend, and more quickly than I thought possible, her fiance. I was happy for her, I thought maybe some guy finally appreciated all her quirks and she was finally going to get that fairytale wedding she'd been planning since we were eight. But one day, when I was dropping of my new pair of scarlet red pumps (she'd been eyeing them for weeks, and it gave me an excuse to not be extravagant with the wedding gift), I see Seamus sitting on her sofa, bawling his eyes out.

And then Miss Bubbly started losing her fizz.

"Healer Patil, Healer Morrison! What in the devil's name took you twenty minutes to get up here? Fourth Floor Pages are of utmost priority! You two are the most useless imbeciles of my last flock and so help me Merlin if you turn up late again, I will have you scrapping fungus off dragon pox victims till kingdom come!"

Sometimes I feel my memory immediately paraphrases lectures like this one, because thinking back, Healer Worchester, my formidable and depressingly archaic resident, never spoke for less than five minutes about the importance of prompt attendance. And even though the situation paged to me via my Wand Alert sounded dire, Worchester never forgot to seize an opportunity to chastise myself or Freddy. We were the scourge of the Spell Damage floor, and the targets of mockery from all our fellow interns. I took it simply as jealously, for I was the only intern who could pull of scarlet lipstick at 7o'clock in the morning.

"So what's the situation? Is it another tour-bus attacked by some Neo-Death Eaters?" Freddy said eagerly, rubbing his gloved hands together in excitement. Freddy, bless his heart, was from Australia and had missed the travesty of the war against Voldemort. Carnage, mutilation, the things that would make a normal person run away vomiting, brightened Freddy's spirits. In these more peaceful days there was little in terms of major catastrophe or accident to keep us busy, and boredom lead to an appetite for destruction.

"Well if you were here on time" I tilted my head towards the swarm of interns shouting Worchester's name "…..well alright, just look, there are about a dozen folks here from near Kent, all appearing to be burnt severely and suffering from some cringe-worthy internal bleeding. Three are already dead, another four we fear we won't be able to resuscitate…." By this time we'd already wandered over to the stretchers, and I opened my eyes in shock. It was a mess of inflamed skin and blackened limbs. It wasn't clear what happened to these people, but from the frantic sounds of the other Healers, it wasn't getting better with time,

"..and so you see, it seems these folks have been hexed in such a manner that a fire is burning their internal organs, slowly and methodically, knocking out the weaker organs first than taking on the heavy hitters of the heart and lungs…"

I interrupted abruptly as someone passed me cooling potion for no particular reason and the mob began to spark with the alarm and panic. "Why can't we just counter the hex? A simple freezing charm would do the trick…"

"This is why I demand promptness Healer Patil! We've already ascertained that a Flame Freezing Charm would be adequate if the flame was on the exterior of the body. But it appears the flame is inside their internal system, inhibiting us freezing us without threat of damaging the other organs, and secondly... the flame has no apparent source."

I raised my eyebrows. Worchester never hesitated like this. I began conjuring up an intravenous tube to make use of the cooling potion. 'A hex continuing on its own? This is something you don't get everyday…' I thought to myself.

Suddenly one of the bodies screamed in agony, a piercing wail that reverberated around the trauma room. The other victims began shaking at the sound, and my tube was flung out of the arm I had planted it in. Then the unimaginable happened. Flames burst from out of the woman's eye sockets and nostrils. The intern at her side threw herself backwards into the potions cart, and a small cauldron filled with water flew in the air. The contents were flung on to the flailing woman's stomach, and they became steam in seconds. Then without warning the flailing stopped, and the flames diminished, leaving a black scar where the nose was, and shrivelled coals in the sockets.

"What's happening to these people?" Freddy shouted at me from his patient, who was now convulsing with steam rising from the pores of his abdomen.

The remaining survivors we wheeled into trauma rooms immediately but in route another four suffered the sickening fate of the flame-grilled lady still in the lobby. This hex was acting fast, and only four individuals were left….

The doors of the lobby burst open, and a horde of black cloaked individuals ran towards the bodies that were left. Aurors! I thought in amazement as I saw several familiar figures amongst their ranks. Is this seriously happening?

Then I saw his face amongst the assembled, right as my room began to seal. Towering above his companions was the rugged brown haired figure of the man that just made my whole day worse.

I turned to look at my patient, but it was already too late. His scorched body was black in the face, and the other residents were already pulling open the doors to the connected trauma room. I hazard another glance at the frowning Auror examining the first victim, before I sprinted for the next ward.

"Seize them! Seize their stones before they Apparate, God damn it!"

I froze and turned. Ash face had risen from his bed and looked right at me, the skull of the most horrific skeleton adoring where his head once had been.

"Seize them before she rises! Before she kills us all!"