Astrid Potter landed in an undignified heap in what she assumed was the French Gringotts. She groaned and pushed her trunk off of herself from where it had landed on top of her and sat up.
She was in a relatively large oval room made out of white marble. A set of double doors stood off to he side with two goblin guards at each end. The witch eyed the little beings warily. Though they gave no sign of it, she could practically feel their amusement, or maybe her embarrassment was making her assume.
As she got up she saw the subtle smirk on a younger looking goblin and grumbled half heartedly. Laugh it up ya little bastards.
With a sigh she exited the room and then the lobby to enter the magical district of France. The market place was bustling with all manner of people who were speaking French. It was loud and bright and filled with magical energy.
Astrid smiled and, with the noise a constant buzzing in her ears, she set off for what was obviously a hotel. The bed on the sign kinda gave it away. It wasn't until she entered the building that she realized she probably should have went to a country with a language she actually understood.
A short, bubbly looking woman with bright blond hair and blue green eyes smiled at her brightly and spoke what Astrid assumed was a greeting. The only word she actually knew was bonjour. Yeah, she definitely should have gone to an English speaking country. She hadn't even thought about it when Sharpclaw asked for a destination to make the portkey. France had just slipped out really.
"Um," she stated nervously and more than a bit embarrassed, "do you speak English by chance?"
The lady gave a small laugh and replied with a bit of an accent, "Yes, many shop keepers will be bi-lingual in the magical sect. We get a lot foreign tourists."
Astrid slumped in relief, crisis averted for the moment. "Oh, great. This is a hotel, right?"
"Yes. A rather small one. If you're looking for more luxurious accommodations you should try at the end of the Alley." The woman, whose name tag read Adèle, gave her a look over with bit of a grimace, "No offense meant dear, but you look like you could use the relaxation." Astrid could have sworn the woman muttered, "or a healer." Under her breath but she decided to ignore that for now, she knew she looked horrible and probably did need to see a healer.
"I'd actually prefer small and less known." The younger witch answered sheepishly while looking around. The place was clean looking and had a homey feel to it. It kinda reminded her of what she read a bed and breakfast should feel like.
"Well, you've come to the right place then. It's 10 sickles a night or 1 galleon and 13 sickles for five days. Your stay comes with a complementary breakfast every morning of your stay as well as our tourist map with popular areas highlighted. We also have lunch and dinner available as well as drinks for a separate charge, a menu will be in your room. Breakfast is served every day at 8 O'clock in the morning with the option of having it delivered to your room or you can join the other guests in our small dinning area if you wish to mingle." Adèle reeled off so quickly Astrid struggled to keep up, but she somehow managed.
"I'd prefer breakfast in my room please. And I'll stay for 5 nights." She dug out the correct amount of coins and handed it over, thinking that 5 days would give her time to actually figure out what to do. She needed some form of plan instead of just winging it like usual. Winging it only works out half the time.
The lady smiled and accepted the money, making a note on a piece of parchment. She handed Astrid a key and directed her down the hall, last door on the right. The British witch smile and gave a soft "Thank you" before walking quickly down the hallway and stopping at the last door with a number 10 on it.
She was pleasantly surprised how nice the room was. The walls were a soft cream color and the carpet was thick and soft. The queen sized bed took up the majority of the small room and looked fluffy and practically called to her with large pillows and a thick deep blue colored duvet with silver flowers sewn into it. It looked like heaven to her. But before she even thought about sleeping, she desperately needed a shower.
Astrid quickly walked through the only other door in the room and entered a small bathroom with a toilet, two sinks, and a standing shower. Exited at the prospect of not only getting clean, but taking as long of a shower as she wanted to, the girl quickly heated the water, stripped, and stumbled in in her haste to be clean.
After an hour long shower and a quick drying charm, Astrid fell onto the most comfortable bed she'd ever been on and nearly instantly fell asleep, the excitement of the day, as well as the weakness of her malnourished body catching up to her. For the first time in months, the Girl-Who-Lived had a restful, dreamless sleep.
The next day Astrid put on her school robes, after charming off the Hogwarts and Gryffindor crests, and decided that she was in desperate need of more clothes. She only had her school robes and Dudley's cast offs that she pretty much swam in.
She raked a comb through her hair, trying in vain to some what tame the mess before giving up and throwing it into a messy bun at the base of her skull. A few strands escaped and hung around her face but she just gave it up as a bad job and left it. After losing that battle and a quick breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast that was brought to her room as promised, she pulled her old ball cap low on her head to help hide her scar and set off out of her room.
The receptionist was a different girl this time, younger than the last and had an extremely bored look on her face. Her hair was pin straight and nearly as black as her own and her heavy lidded eyes were a dark chocolate brown. Her skin was pale and she had her nose pierced with a diamond stud and a ring on her lip.
Astrid nodded politely to her as she passed and walked out into the bright sunlight filled Alley. She pulled out the map that had come with her breakfast and quickly looked for the best places to shop.
It was as she was skimming over it that she noticed a small note in the corner as well as an arrow pointing a certain direction.
Still no offense meant, but you really do look like you could use a healer. Was written in very neat script and obviously come from the receptionist from the day before. Astrid bit her lip indecisively. She had no idea how to start getting herself healthy again, and the smart thing to do would be to take the receptionist's advice and see the healer. She was hesitant though. A healer would need to know who she was and she had no idea if she was as famous here as she was in Britain. She really didn't need the whole country to know she was here if the healer couldn't keep their mouth shut. There really was no helping it though. She needed help.
With a weary sigh, the girl followed the map to the small, out of the way building that was nestled in a nearly hidden corner of the alley. The building looked relatively new and a plaque beside the door read "le guérisseur Enzo Rousseau"
Nervously the young witch walked up the stairs and opened the door, hearing a bell chime as she did so. The interior was a peaceful setting, brightly lit with squishy looking arm chairs in what was obviously a waiting room. It had a fireplace and a hanging chandelier, as well as a book case with frequently read books as well as magazines and newspapers for customers to read from. There was no one in the waiting room so she must have come at a time that they were least busy.
A male voice suddenly speaking French to her left made her jump and then blush, embarrassed at her reaction. An older gentleman was looking at her expectantly, his soft brown hair lightly streaked with grey and his tanned face was just starting to wrinkle with age. He looked at her with soft blue eyes and waited patiently for her to answer. It was clear that the young witch was nervous and he didn't want to push her. Just by looking at her he could tell that she really needed help.
"Ah, um. English?" Astrid stumbled slightly in her words and had to force herself not to fidget. The man was so much taller than her, she had to crane her neck to look up at his face.
He gave a gentle smile and spoke softly in an accented voice, "Of course miss. I am Healer Enzo and this is my private practice. How my help you this morning?"
Astrid glance away from him and back quickly and asked, "You can't give any patient information away can you?"
The healer looked at her suspiciously and answered, "We take patient confidentiality very seriously here. All employees are required to take an oath to such affect before ever handling patient information."
Feeling a bit more confident after that, Astrid straightened some, "A receptionist at the hotel I'm staying at recommended seeing you and gave me directions here. As I'm sure you can tell, I'm not exactly in the best of health. I was hoping you could help."
The suspicion cleared from his face and he smiled at her again and gestured for her to follow him into an examination room.
"I will see what I can do. You can take a seat on the bed." He pointed to a plain white hospital bed and she hoped up on it and looked at the healer expectantly.
Healer Enzo pulled out a roll of parchment and a quill and said, "I need your full name, your date of birth, and how long you've been in this condition. After that I will give you a full examination, most of which is done magically, and we will talk about how we can help you get better."
"Astrid Rosalie Potter." She started, catching the healer's slight pause as he wrote her name, but he said nothing which she was very thankful for, "July 31 1980. I have always been rather malnourished, my relatives don't like feeding me much. It's a bit worse than usual now because I have been fighting a sever bout of depression after the recent loss of my godfather." She tried to give him the information that he needed without saying too much. "I'm sure you'll find mis healed bones and scarring during the examination as well. I have never received any vaccinations, be the magical or muggle."
The healer maintained a professional air as he listened to her and made notes on the parchment and then nodded when she was done. "Ok Miss Potter, first I am going to cast a diagnostic charm. It will tell me of any immediate concerns as well as if you currently have anything in your system that may affect the healing."
Astrid nodded her understanding and held still as the healer spoke the incantation and a wave of magic passed through her. It took a couple of minutes before a stream of parchment left the tip of his wand and the healer took out a pair of reading glasses to look it over.
"Hmm. You were right about the bones and scarring. I can prescribe a scar reducer to take care of the most noticeable if you would like but it will only fade them, not remove them entirely. As for the bones, you have three that did not heal properly aligned and will have to be re broken and set correctly. One rib, one in your left wrist, and one in your left hand. That will be painful I'm afraid, each break has surrounded itself in scar tissue which will have to be removed. How you have any mobility in that hand I'll never know. You are severely malnourished to the point of near organ failure and your bones are so brittle I'm not sure how you haven't broken more of them."
Healer Enzo sighed and removed his glasses to look at the witch that was much too small for her age, "I'll be honest with you Miss Potter, it's going to be a long recovery. Your Magical Guardian should have addressed this as soon as they noticed and if not them, your school teachers and nurse should have. The fact that they didn't is…astounding and extremely irresponsible. It is not possible that they didn't notice your condition. Things like this do not happen over night. What I am most concerned with is that as a minor, I cannot start healing you without your guardians permission and if they haven't corrected it before, it most likely means that they just don't want to."
"It's ok healer. I came to that conclusion a long time ago. I just recently became emancipated. You won't need his permission if you have mine." She said softly still trying to wrap her head around just how bad she was. Organ failure? Brittle bones? Apparently she didn't need to worry about Voldemort killing her, her relatives were doing a bang up job of it on their own. She almost laughed at that thought just thinking about the Dark Lords reaction to the fact muggles came closer to killing her than he ever did.
Healer Enzo actually sighed in relief and smiled at her, "Good. That's very good. Now, you'll have to stay here over night, I'm going to have to sever the scar tissue around each mis-healed bone and carefully remove as much as I can. I most likely will not be able to remove it all, but I can clean it up some so that it doesn't bother you as much. It will most likely cause you pain when you're much older and you'll probably have arthritis in your left hand and wrist once you're older as well.
"Then I will re break the bones and set them correctly, I'll wrap them and give you a small dose of skele gro. You will have to be monitored throughout the night to make sure nothing shifts as its healing.
"I can numb you a bit with magic and give you a mild pain reliever for the cutting and breaking that has to be done but anything stronger will interfere with the skele gro."
Astrid gave him a dry smile and said, "I'm rather used to pain at this point. I just want to be healthy for once. What can be done about the brittle bones and near organ failure?"
"Well, we do have a month long potion regimen that must be followed to the letter that will fix both issues slowly throughout the month. You must eat extremely healthily and frequently while on them, that means you cannot miss a meal and you need frequent snacks between meals. When you leave tomorrow I can give you a set of the potions and a dietary plan that you will follow.
"With that I will also be prescribing you nutrition potions that you will take with food every morning and evening with your breakfast and supper. I will give you a months supply of each potion and at the end of the month I want you to come back in for a check up and see if you will need more or not. And before you leave you will receive your missing vaccinations."
Astrid nodded in acceptance and resigned herself to a night of sleeplessness and pain.