Picking up the small clipboard hanging from the beds end, Harry spared a glance at the rooms sole occupant. A small child near ten by his reckoning lay in the bed, sleeping. Her eyes sunken and grey were closed. The white hospital linen had been tucked by someone under her chin. Her eyes and cheeks sunken, her unnaturally pale skin and thin straw like wisps of blonde hair poking from underneath the sick girl's knitted cap, made for a macabre appearance.
Flipping through the medical papers his eyes skimmed the various orderly's notations about her progress and her prognosis. As he read the doctors hopeful estimates Harry stepped around the bed, sitting himself down on the mattress next to the sleeping child.
Turning from the messily scribbled notes Harry touched a gloved finger to the girl's sickly forehead. Near invisible the runes along the enchanted gloves began to glow, information about the girl and her condition began to flow through to Harry; Harry's Occulumancy shifting through the massive wave of information. The operation and treatments to remove a pea sized lump of cancerous tissue from behind the child's ear had left its mark on the girl.
He could trace the muggle doctor's path. From the surgeries initial entry site and it's neatly stitched line behind the girl's ear through to the now healing cavity the malign lump had been excised from. The dozens of needle marks and bruises pockmarking her soft tissue from the anaesthesia and the intravenous drip.
His magic swept through her body. Healing magic reinforcing the atrophied muscles, smoothing the after effects of the radiation treatment. He left the shallow entrance of the needle marks untouched, sealing the internal tears and bruising. Harry frowned, hidden within the girl's eye a small lump of cancer was growing. It was too small for the muggles to have detected, its absence from the medical charts reinforcing that supposition.
There would be no awkward questions if he removed it not like there would be if the girl miraculously returned to full health overnight. The muggles wouldn't know anything had changed, Harrys lips twitched. A mental flex and the cancerous growth became nothing more than a memory.
"Excuse me who -" A voice spoke up from behind Harry, the sudden question startling him from his magical examination.
Twisting on the bed Harry turned to face the source of the voice, a disapproving nurse stood beside the door, her arm holding the room's door ajar. Harry took in the heavy set nurse, from her position she looked at his form, sitting aside the child a gloved hand on her forehead. The nurse's lips pursed, a look of suspicion on her face.
Sighting the bedazzled badge on Harry chest the portly nurse trailed off. Her look of suspicion shifting to a look of recognition.
"Doctor Porter!" She exclaimed, stepping through the doorway into the room proper, a wide smile fixed itself across her face, "I didn't realise you were on shift this week,"
Subconsciously her hands moved down her front, smoothing the wrinkles from her uniform.
"Just finishing up –" Lifting his gloved hand from the young cancer patients forehead his eyes glanced down at the nurses small bronze name tag. He offered her a thin smile, "Nancy. Doctor Thompson wanted me to give her chart a once over,"
"Oh of course," She said, her eyes darting to the shrunken girl, "Poor dearie, she came in with a broken leg playing football of all things, like some wild chit,"
Her wrinkles deepened as she scowled, her disapproval clear on her face. She let loose an explosive sigh, "It's never good when they get the big C so young, it will hang like a spectre over her life, she'll probably never shake it,"
"Well, the good news is I doubt the cancer will return," Harry offered, Nancy resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his naiveté towards the realities of life, "She should be back kicking footballs or climbing trees soon,"
A shrill beep came from Nancy's belt cutting short Harry. Pulling her pager from her waist, Nancy's eyes widened at the numbers on the small black machines screen; she turned giving Harry not a second thought. Stepping quickly she pushed her way out of the room heading to the emergency leaving Harry in the room.
Through the door Harry could see silhouettes of rushing figures moving past the room, the clatter of feet on linoleum drifted through the slowly closing door. As the door clicked shut the room dropped into silence only the soft breathing of the girl beside him lifting the hush.
Pressing a finger again to the girl's forehead Harry dived again into his examination.
Having done what he could Harry stepped out from the isolated room.
Stepping down the hallway away from the room Harry weaved his way through the nurses and doctors sharing the corridor. Turning from the main thoroughfare into a quieter corridor Harry came to a stop in front of a familiar thin green door. A cautious glance either way for any onlookers Harry palmed his wand, the slender wood dropping from his wrist holster. Dropping an unstable notice-me-not on the door he opened the small janitorial closet door.
Stepping in he closed the closet door behind him. Surrounded by dusty shelves and the smell of bleach Harry twisted on his heel. Disappearing from the closet with a soft crack he left behind a rapidly collapsing ward.
-Scene Break-
Her hair tied back in a messy bun Hermione lent over her workstation; a short bench pockmarked from past potions. A small silver cauldron simmered in front of her. In her hand she held a short golden spoon. With it she stirred the brewing potion, flashes of silver spreading like vines from the spoons wake. The colour sinking back into the crimson mixture.
Dipping her fingers into a small ceramic jar her fingers sank into the cold powdered root. Pinching her index and thumb together she pulled out a smacking of powder. Sprinkling a pinch of the golden flakes into the bubbling liquid, the cauldrons contents began to glow a soft gold; throwing off a golden aura.
A crack of apparition echoed from down the hall startling Hermione; Harry had returned.
"In a minute Harry," She said, the footsteps behind her stopping. Her eyes not moving from their laser like focus on the cauldron in front of her, "The Felix Felicis is at a very delicate stage. It needs my complete focus – unless you want it to become a bad luck potion that is,"
"Nope, carry on. Ignore me," Hermiones lip twitched in amusement. Behind her she heard the rustle of papers, Harry flipping through her notes on the table she assumed.
Picking her wand up from the bench she held it over the simmering potion. The crimson mixture still moving, the momentum from the earlier movements of the golden spoon driving the liquids movements. Spreading from the cauldrons rim the mixture began to take on a golden tinge, as the mixture bubbled the emerging gold began to solidify into thick lines of golden colour spreading like lattice.
Silver sparks fell from her wand. The sparkles falling, buffeted by invisible winds as they fell like autumn leaves. Landing on the mixtures surface they sat suspended on top of the potion. As she stirred again with each pass of the golden spoon the shimmering motes sunk into the potion. Silver flecks formed throughout the potions glowing golden aura.
Ceasing the rain of silver Hermione tapped her wand to the cauldrons rim with a silent incantation the liquid flashed. A shining beam of light erupted vertically from the potion, behind her she heard a muffled curse and a clatter as whatever Harry had been holding fell in his surprise.
Hermione blinked the spots from her vision, the intense light fading as quickly as it had erupted.
"Whiskey!" At her command the small house elf appeared on the bench, large wet eyes blinked at Hermione. The elf wore a thick and heavily stained leather apron over its miniature butler's outfit.
"Yeses Mistress?" It said, nodding its head. Bat like ears flopped as it moved.
Hermione pointed a finger at the now simmering potion. "Keep it in the second cool room and the heat at a low burn. It will need to be stirred every seven hours, forty nine rotations each time alternating clockwise and then anticlockwise,"
"I wills," Whiskey said, nodding. Withdrawing a small pad of paper the house elf scribbled a note on the paper. Bowing once to Hermione Whiskey's slim fingers clicked, the bubbling potion and the still dripping spoon disappeared from the bench and Hermiones fingers with an echoing clap. A second later its orders received the small elf flickered away.
Running her fingers through her hair Hermione let out a heavy sigh the intense focus required to work with such a volatile potion was tiring. Stretching her arms overhead she flexed her shoulders trying to uncramp her back and neck muscles; the knots tight after the past hours spent bent over the cauldron stirring.
Dropping her arms, her back muscles tingling from the new movement she spun herself on her stool to face Harry.
Sitting at a table in the room's centre opposite her work bench Harry's fingers turned over a small cragged lump formed of a blue substance, Hermiones failed attempt at magically duplicating Naquahdah. Now nothing more than an inert paperweight.
In front of him hundreds of papers annotated with her own messy scrawl lay scattered across the tabletop.
"A luck potion?" Harry asked, flipping the copied Naquahdah the misshapen blobbed cartwheeled through the air falling into his hands.
"Figured we might need the luck sooner or later," Standing from her stool, her knees creaked and popped, "It needs to brew at least until the solstice, it won't be ready for months yet…"
Hermione sat down on the empty chair at the table, her fingers began to gather together the scattered sheets sorting them into different piles.
"I started to put down some ideas on how to best set up some form of legitimate muggle front, to disseminate the technological advancements," Holding a piece of paper Hermione scowled a the messy scrawl, upending the sheet her eyes widened in comprehension she dropped it into its pile, her hands moving to grab another loose sheet. "Computers, Patents, Names those sort of things,"
Harry nodded, smoothing down a small smile. "Names? Like names for the muggle company?"
"How about Marauder Inc?" Harry offered, his expression offering nothing to hint at his sincerity
Hermione's eyes narrowed at Harry's guileless expression, slowly he poked his tongue out. The tips of her mouth twitched a note of amusement entering her voice, "Don't make me hit you Harry,"