ossify: to harden or to become bone.
syncretic: uniting and blending together different belief systems.
Argus-eyed: extremely observant; watchful.
"What?" Harry uttered as he attempted to shoot up from his small bed in the infirmary. "I could swear you just said I don't have a bone. In my arm. Where there should be a bone."
Madame Pomfrey rolled her eyes and tutted as she snatched a vile of foul medicine from an empty stand nearby. She mumbled something about selective hearing before answering.
"There should be a badly broken albeit very present bone in your arm and you are correct in your assessment that I did indeed just inform you of its lack of existence. That buffoon of a man currently seen as your teacher attempted to heal you before you were taken to me, and look where it got you? Now we have to let that medication ossify. Goodness gracious, what messes one can get in when wands are found in the hands of the dimwitted."
Harry flopped back onto his pillow and closed his eyes once she'd initially answered his questions. He knew from previous years that when she was in a ranting mood—often—she could go on and on.
"God damn him." Poppy popped off the top to Harry's medicine as his own eyes shot open. He had never heard her say something like that. Normally her beliefs were too syncretic to choose a phrase such as the one he had just heard… not to mention she didn't seem the type anyway. He shrugged.
His apathy disappeared when he tasted the medicine yet again. Had it become worse since his last whack at downing it? It must have. His sheets became wet with the liquid yet again.
"That better not become a common occurrence, young man," she scolded with a sharp voice as she poured another serving. He clogged his nose and downed it while she watched on in her Argus-eyed fashion. The boy considered waiting until she had left and spewing it behind the headset for the cockroaches, but decided against that. The liquid would have to linger in his mouth for much too long and he'd probably be caught anyway with her overly perceptive eyes.
"Thanks," he piped in quickly with a slight cough as it trickled down to his stomach.
"Might feel a bit cool in your arm my dear, so don't fret," the nurse told him with a stiff-backed sort of maternal kindness. He nodded and lay back again, looking up. He wanted to rant himself, knowing that that stupid troll-brained man was still swaggering about the castle with his charming smile.
"That man is a disgrace to the wizarding world. Who is to believe that he has tackled such great feats? I'd believe my gram came back from the dead to paint my toenails over that load of codswallop." The woman was up and hustling about again, picking at this and that as a method of cleaning.
Harry couldn't help but smile. She was at it again. He could hear himself thinking those same sentences in his own words, admittedly with a few more cusswords.
"Goodnight Madame Pomfrey."
"Oh, you'd wish that, wouldn't you? You have four more servings of that mouthful before the moon's set again."
He groaned as she chuckled, gave him a pat on his knee, and trod off to her office.