First: I don't own the Harry Potter universe or characters.
Hogwarts Drabble Challenge:Bottle
First aid challenge
Quidditch challenge: she had never felt so free
Warning:Drug abuse. Graphic injuries.
Dreamless Sleep
1st February 1980
She kept the small purple bottle in her white pinafore pocket. It was a comfort. It wasn't like she was going to be reckless and sneak a sip in during her lunch break, because that would be stupid and irresponsible. She'd been a Ravenclaw, that meant she was clever.
She was clever… She was smart… She wouldn't get caught...
"Vivian, are you okay?"
The voice jolted her back to reality - had she been staring into space? She was back into the hospital room. Mara, the healer who had spoken, was looking at her expectantly.
Vivian smiled, contritely. "Sorry."
She was meant to be serving Mr Gallows his lunch (the poor man was paralysed from the neck down), the bowl of potato soup still resting in her hands. Mara just cocked an eyebrow, but then just shrugged it off, gathering the dirty blankets in her arms.
Stay focused.
Vivian forced a smile, carefully bringing the spoon to Mr Gallows' lips.
She was meant to be clever.
She'd received an Exceeds Expectations in Potions.
The Dreamless Sleep drought: A purple medicinal potion that is used to induce drowsiness and, if correctly made, a dreamless sleep in the drinker.
A bottle of bliss.
But, there was a warning on dosage; the potion was powerful after all. It was to be prescribed by a trained healer…
But, you are a healer.
…If the drought is taken too regularly, the user may become addicted and dependant on the substance.
It just helps you sleep.
Vivian stared blankly at the white wall ahead. She was sitting in the cafeteria, her prawn sandwich half eaten; she didn't feel very hungry.
"Vivian!" Mara called, rushing into the cafeteria.
She glanced up at her colleague, her mind feeling slow. "What's wrong?"
"New admission… it's a bad one. Come on." There was a grimace on Mara's face, her blonde hair was dishevelled out of its bun and there were blood stains on her pinafore (she'd need to use a spell to get rid of all that). "Come on," Mara's voice had become more urgent.
Vivian shivered, hastily regaining her focus.
Focus!
"Coming!"
She bolted to her feet and followed Mara out.
They were understaffed.
She didn't know if whether or not it was because people were dying faster than flies, or because no one could stomach the blood, sweat and puss.
The general public claimed the Aurors were the brave souls fighting on the frontlines of the war.
But, she didn't think they comprehended the stress of taking in ten to twenty admissions a day, while also being understaffed in a hospital that survived on charity. Having to watch people die, then have to move their cold corpses out of bed for another to lie in, while the mattress was still warm.
Having to lie to your patients and tell them, "everything's going to be okay." She said that to old Miss Wolpert just this morning, and many of the healers weren't even sure she'd last the night.
Then, she'd force a smile and repeat the same process every single day.
It's never going to stop.
Vivian placed her hand in her pocket, standing in the middle of the hallway. She lightly touched the bottle, letting out a deep sigh as her fingers trailed over the smooth surface.
She felt exhausted all the time.
It was like every day a little chunk of her was taken away.
The headaches weren't that bad, they were distracting, but they reminded her to stay focused.
Stay focused.
There was a new patient that had been brought in, Marlene McKinnon; they had been transfiguration partners once.
But now Ms McKinnon's mind was gone. The Cruciatus curse had turned her into a twitching mess; all she did was mutter and mumble things in a language Vivian didn't understand.
They would have moved Ms McKinnon to the Janus Thickly ward if not for her injuries.
Vivian had drawn the white curtain round them, so the other patients and visitors wouldn't be afraid.
Ms McKinnon's face looked like it had been skinned, then reattached. Her face had large deep gashes along her forehead and cheeks. They'd removed the bones in her legs; maybe to stop her from running away, maybe they got off making their victims helpless.
There was also filthy profanity carved into her body, not by wand but by knife.
Vivian frowned.
Marlene must have done something big to anger the Death Eater's so much.
Ms McKinnon was going to die, slowly, she wouldn't recover. The knife the Death Eater's had used had been laced with a deadly curse. The healers couldn't contain the curse, only slow it down.
Vivian was already preparing the fresh blankets for the new patient.
The first time she had taken the potion had been four months ago when the Bradson family was brought in.
Mr and Mrs Bradson and their four children: Ellie, Marge, Danny and Sarah.
Danny had been seventeen with tanned, thin skin, and a meek look about him. He was a Muggle-Born and had been a defiant one.
She didn't know the full story.
She didn't want to know.
Muggles were only brought to St Mungos if their injuries were severe and not easily cured. Death had picked off each member of the family; Danny was the first to go, everyone else followed after.
She watched each one of them die in the space of two weeks.
She wished she could forget their faces, their begging and their confusion. She used to think about them every day and then she started dreaming about them every night. How did you control your nightmares when you didn't even know you were dreaming, because the memories were so vivid, and you didn't know how to wake up?
And, honestly, the, Dreamless Sleep draught potion had been easy to make. Slughorn had always said she had a knack for detail, even if her work had never outshone Lily Evans' or that Snape boy's. But, after making it so many times over the months, she had the recipe memorised.
And, in those brief moments after waking, with no dreams to plague her, she felt light. It was only for a moment and she still had to face the day ahead, but just for a moment she was at peace as if she was floating away.
She had never felt so free. It was bottled bliss.
But as the day wore on… she felt so tired…
The man had a gaping hole in his chest, whatever curse had been thrown at him, it had been powerful enough to expose his rib cage. A thin, almost see-through, layer of muscle covering the organs, as the man's heart thumbed rapidly.
It looked surreal… like from a nightmare…
But, surprisingly, he might not die. The organs weren't too badly damaged, though he had nearly died from the shock. They had to pump him up with enough drugs to knock out an Ogre, but if they wanted to save him they needed to get him stabilised.
There were three healers working on him now, Vivian included. They were using a combination of their magic, trying to remove the spell's effects and repair the skin tissue. They'd need to take skin from his thigh and backside or they wouldn't be able to seal up the gaping wound.
Her hands weren't steady.
Her eyes felt like they were glazing over.
Her head hurt.
She gripped her wand tighter, trying to keep up a constant flow of magic, watching the wound intently.
The man's heartbeat was almost hypnotic.
Thump. Thump. Thump… Thump.
"Vivian!"
She jerked. The heartbeat was slowing down.
Mara pushed her out of the way, muttering spells under her breath frantically, until the man's heartbeat returned to normal.
Vivian wanted to crawl away when she saw the look Mara shot her, but they didn't have time to argue, they had a life to save. The third healer was already struggling to stabilise the patient as it was.
Three hours later, Mara reported her.
Vivian expected she'd be fired. She stuffed her hand in her pocket and held the purple bottle tightly, like a child hugging a teddy bear. She waited for the inevitable.
But, they didn't fire her.
No, they gave her three days of sick leave so she, "had proper time to rest and recover" from whatever ailment that was distracting her from work.
She dreamt of nothing.
She woke up content.
4th February 1980
Vivian woke up at seven in the morning sharp. She ate oatmeal and berries for breakfast, before putting on her uniform. She smoothed down her crisp white pinafore, before her eyes strayed to the purple bottle on her bedside table.
She stared at the bottle for quite a long time, before hesitantly picking it up and placing it in her pinafore pocket…