"Hermione," the Healer-in-training called my name. I stood dutifully, brushing non-existent particles from my Ministry-issue business robes, and allowed myself to be led back to an examination room on the sixth floor of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. [1]
The Healer-in-training (HIT) smiled at me and I swallowed hard to try and choke down the resentment I felt for her seemingly carefree outlook. Her boisterous steps and chipper tone as she babbled her introduction to me reflected her youth, and it became clear that she couldn't be bothered by the difficulties of anyone else's lives because hers was perfect. I missed her name in my exercise in self-restraint, but it was neither here nor there.
"Are you nervous?" she asked, leaning toward me while we walked as though we were long-time friends. In my mind I answered 'no, I truly fancy coming to the hospital first thing in the morning for a check-up I didn't appoint myself', but in the physical world my response was a non-committal "Hmm."
She took my contribution to the conversation as fuel for the fire and unleashed a continuous stream of words, as though she'd barely been holding them back. "All of the department Heads that have come for their annual examinations so far have been terribly nervous! I'm only a junior Healer, so I didn't oversee any of them, but my girlfriend Becky told me that when Madam Bones came in last week she near-oh! This is your room! Room four!"
We had arrived, apparently, as her stream of babbling ceased (small miracles). The junior Healer withdrew a tiny white board from her pocket that, once enlarged, reminded me of a Muggle video game attachment I had used back in my summers at home-a Wii Fit board, if I recalled. She placed it on the tile near the doorway of my examination room.
"If you would please step up on the scale, we can get the nasty part over with quickly," she said, laughing as though my weight were the thing I most feared in a visit to the hospital.
I complied, placing my feet on the indicated white pad and waited the required three seconds for it to measure the pull of gravity on my body with the Earth. Blue, cloudlike numbers shot from the scale and floated at eye-level.
"147," she announced (because clearly I have no eyes to see for my own, thank you), and she laughed once more. "You're in thick robes though, I'll put down 145."
"I'll thank you to record my measurements as they are," I managed through gritted teeth. Cheeky bitch. Normally my good manners wouldn't have allowed me to tell her what I really thought about her 'favor' in reducing my weight for records, but my patience was being thoroughly tested and I was in no mood to socialize politely with the general population.
The carefree disposition slipped from her face and she looked stunned before a scowl marred her lips. She led me into the room, indicating I should sit, and went about fixing up my chart-muttering nastily to herself all the while. After making short work of her responsibilities, she finally straightened to face me once more.
The world's perkiest Healer-in-training (taken down a notch, I noted smugly) gave me a parting petty glare and said, "The Healer will be with you at her earliest convenience. Sit back and relax."
I nodded and waited until Healer Happy shut the door aggressively before letting out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. I looked about myself, taking in the lavender colored walls and the 'relaxation theme' that decorated the room. A permanent sticking charm held up an organizer that housed a multitude of pamphlets, including "So, There's a Rash on Your Bottom", "When Your Son Prefers A Broomstick in His Snitch", and other titles. Pink and purple seashells littered the walls, and a charmed window revealed a sunset beach with a cotton-candy sky.
Somehow, I was unimpressed.
A knock sounded on the door and it cracked before opening fully to reveal a twenty-something year old male in Healer robes. His hair was dark and his skin pale-unlike the long, light brown waves and tan skin of the Healer that was supposed to be attending me.
He walked in without looking up from his clipboard as though my medical history were the most interesting literature he had seen before. The door closed behind him, yet he was still lost in his paperwork and silent.
"Who're you?" I finally snarled, startling him from his reading. I noted as he looked up that his eyes were a unique shade of violet, his lashes long and dark.
"Oh, my sincere apologies, Miss Granger," he stammered, straightening his shoulders and facing me full-on. "My name is Healer Broderick, I'm new to this ward. Healer Stockard will be in late this morning, she was held up by some sort of family emergency."
Lovely. I didn't want to be here in the first place, and I wouldn't if it weren't between getting a check-up and losing my position as Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, but now I'd been reduced to being seen by the newbie. War hero, brightest witch of my age, and all, and I was a plaything for some up-and-coming pompous arse.
Bloody fantastic.
"Bloody fantastic," I said aloud, then let out a small squeak as I covered my runaway mouth with my hands.
To my great surprise, the Healer laughed.
"I get it," he chuckled endearingly, "And I apologize. However, I'm certain you would much rather get on with this than wait for Healer Stockard to arrive. We've taken up much of your time to begin with."
Hmm. Maybe I would like this Healer after all.
He was surprisingly cynical and had the same dry sense of humor that I prided in myself, apparent as he ridiculed the procedures and tests we went through. I invited him to call me Hermione, but it escaped his notice to give me a first name. I found myself laughing with him, and thinking that perhaps the visit would not end badly.
That is, until he asked the big question.
"Hermione, when's the last time you had a mammogram?"
I was floored. "I beg your pardon?"
He had the good sense to look a little sheepish. "Well, it's a routine part of our examinations for Muggleborn women here at St. Mungo's. Typically, pure-bloods and most half-blooded witches and wizards are immune to Muggle diseases and cancers, but the magic in a Muggleborn doesn't repel them the same as other witches and wizards. You're still capable of hosting a disease or a cancer-hence the creation of this ward."
I hadn't even noticed in my anxiousness about the visit. Knowingly, my eyes sought the sign near the door, which read:
Floor 6: Natural Ailments and Maladies
Colin Creevey Ward
Room 4
I fought against a sudden wetness in my eyes.
Less than a year ago, when it was discovered that Colin Creevey was being housed in a Muggle hospital, Harry and Ron had gone on impulse to seemingly rescue him from their care and bring him to a place where he could be treated by his own kind. They took a sleeping Colin from a hospital bed in Muggle London and brought him here, to St. Mungo's-having no way of knowing what a terrible mistake they had made.
Colin's condition was critical in a short amount of time away from the Muggle hospital, and his frailty only seemed to support Harry and Ron's decision to return him to a facility that could understand him-however, the Healers at St. Mungo's had no way to stabilise or slow the rapid generation of cells that were creating a tumor in Colin's head. Brain cancer. The first known case of it in a witch or wizard.
Colin Creevey passed away in a fitful sleep before he could be taken back to the Muggle hospital, whose treatments, it was later discovered, had been succeeding in combatting the cancer in his brain. He had been projected to make a full recovery, it read in his report, and was scheduled for one last aggressive chemotherapy treatment before his pending release from the hospital.
Harry and Ron haven't forgiven themselves. With no family left to mourn him, the three of us held a small service for Colin in the cemetery at Godric's Hollow, where Colin was buried with his family. It was a terrible loss and a dreadful weight on the boys' shoulders, but needless to say, they'd been thinking a lot more about their decisions and acting less impulsively ever since.
"It's wicked cool, don't you think?"
What? Oh. Oblivious to my journey down memory lane, Healer Broderick had continued speaking.
"I'm sorry, I got distracted. What did you say?" My cheeks heated up and I internally groaned, knowing that they had turned an unflattering shade of pink.
He laughed, taking it in good stride. "The runes they drew on this floor to keep the magic from interfering with all of the electronics. Wicked cool, yeah?"
"Yes, it's very impressive." And it was. Keeping all the magic from screwing with the Muggle medicine machines up here was no small feat. I briefly wondered at the mechanics of it and what runes they had used, but decided that runes of significant power would have to be a level beyond my four years of studying the subject at Hogwarts. Perhaps I should simply admire the work instead.
"But anyway, we're straying," Healer Broderick said. "Mammogram. When's the last?"
I screwed up my face and bit my lip a bit before responding sheepishly. "I've not had one before."
"Hermione," he chastised.
"I know, I know, that's bad. I've been avoiding it." That was the truth. I'd been told by my mum from an early age that vaccinations and regular screenings were a must in all parts of health, but when she let slip that it hurt, I vowed to skip a mammogram at all costs. My Muggle doctor's office that still holds me on file as a patient bribes me with a bigger and bigger gift card each six months that I hold out, but no amount of pounds on a piece of plastic have been able to convince me to go and have my breasts squished and photographed.
Broderick sighed. "I'm afraid that I can't give you a complete bill of good health until you've had one. You won't be able to return to the Ministry today without a complete checkup done, and without a recent mammogram on file, we'll need you to have one now."
I trembled a bit, but was proud of the steadiness in my voice when I responded that I found it acceptable.
He flashed a startlingly white smile, stood, and said, "Brilliant. I'll go get set up."
"Wait!" I exclaimed in shock. "Surely you don't mean to examine my..my-"
"Breasts?" He laughed. "Of course. I'm the only Healer qualified to run the machine that's here right now." He must have seen something in my face that moved him, for he came to stand in front of me, crouching a bit to be on my level.
"Hermione, if it is really going to be a stress on you, I could just sign your chart and owl it off to the Ministry and you can promise to come back and have a female Healer take care of you."
I'm not sure which it was-the proximity to a very attractive wizard, whose violet eyes happened to be doing a number on my steely resolve to not get a mammogram done today, or the guilt in my own mind about neglecting to properly test myself. Something provoked me to go through with it.
"Let's get it over with," I sighed.
He beamed and set off to carry out his original task.
The mammogram itself was not as intimidating as it had sounded. It was a bit awkward having an attractive Healer near your own age taking photographs of your breasts, and the plates that squeezed them were mighty uncomfortable, but it was over as abruptly as it had begun and I was re-robed in a matter of minutes.
Healer Broderick signed the required piece of parchment that stated I had indeed carried out a check-up and sent it off to the Minister while he explained to me about what was going to happen next.
"I have no reason to suspect that there's anything wrong with your breasts, from what I saw during the examination they looked-ahem-quite well," He said, blushing. "However, it's standard procedure for us to contact you with the results from your tests whether there's news or not. Expect an owl from me within a week."
I smiled. "Thank you so much for not making this a miserable morning!"
xx
[1] St Mungo's has 5 floors, none of them which deal with natural ailments, as witches and wizards are immune to disease and rarely die of old age or natural causes. The sixth floor is of my own creation-right above the tea room, I imagine.
Thank you for reading! This is my first fanfic.