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Chapter 24: Healing the Rift

Aviva Gray drank her third Six Hour Energy of the night as she rode inside the empty ambulance. She didn't think it would do any real good though: by now she was operating purely off adrenaline. They'd been working all day, taking people (often three or four) from downtown to the outlying hospitals. They'd had to stop for gas three times already and she suspected they'd have to again soon. It didn't feel like they'd even made a dent.

The sirens sounded overhead as the ambulance stopped and she exited the back. She'd had help in the morning, but the guy had stayed behind to help at the last hospital.

Aviva exited onto a street exactly like all the others they'd visited that afternoon. The buildings that were left were gutted. The larger buildings had blackened steel pillars showing the skeletal remains of the building they once supported. The smaller ones had used wooden supports and therefore were completely gone. The fires had gone out after the noonday rain shower but the bomb had done plenty of damage. The shower had also blown the mushroom cloud out of the sky.

Aviva was sure that radiation had poured from the sky onto her and everyone else in London during that storm. She shivered as she thought about it, and wished she could contact her mother for the millionth time that day. But she couldn't. If she did, someone would find out what her mother was. What she should be.

A moaning sound brought Aviva out of her daydream. She grabbed the stretcher from the back, ignoring the blood only somewhat cleaned off top, and rushed to the man's side.

He was missing his right arm, but the wound had cauterized reducing the loss of blood. There were cuts all over his right side and a couple on his leg seemed pretty serious. Aviva gave him credit for courage though: he'd crawled here from a long way away.

"Hello sir," Aviva said, rolling the stroller up next to him. "My name is Aviva, I'm here to help you."

"Help!" the man said. His eyes told her that he wasn't quite sure what was going on.

"It's okay, sir," Aviva said. "We're here to help you."

The man nodded and seemed to relax. It took Aviva and the two men in the front of the ambulance to load the man on the stretcher. The ambulance crews had been mixed today. She'd never gotten a chance to learn their names. Then the navigator left to find a hospital with some room left while the driver helped Aviva get the stroller into the back. The driver smiled weakly at her as he shut her in with the patient.

Aviva hooked the man up to what equipment was still working in the back and sat down in her chair. It was the one place that was still clear of paper and used cords and IV's. She knew she'd be alone for a few moments: the drivers were going to be trying to find a hospital with room and the patient was now passed out but stable. She pulled out her phone and turned it on. She didn't even wait for the missed call notifications before dialing her mother.

"Aviva, is that you?" he mother, Torri, said on the other end.

"Hi Mum," Aviva said as the ambulance started again.

"Aviva, where are you? I've been calling all day!" Torri said.

"I've been working Mum," Aviva said. "Where are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm in Devon with your aunt. Where are you?" Tori asked.

"I'm in London," Aviva said.

"Bloody hell, what are you doing there?" Torri asked. "You get out of there this instant!"

"It's my job Mum," Aviva said. "I'm not going anywhere. Weren't you in London this morning?"

"Yeah but the Prophet told us to leave so we did," Torri said. "It said there was a direct threat on London. Didn't you get that message?"

"No," Aviva said. "No muggle news reported a direct threat to the city."

"Wow," Torri said. "That's terrible. I can't imagine the death toll. The Prophet is reporting that no wizards were injured."

"What?" Aviva asked. "None?"

"Well, it says that everyone left. The only non-muggles in the city when the bomb went off were in the Ministry. Being underground, the Ministry acted as a kind of bunker," Torri said.

Aviva said nothing.

"Aviva, honey?" Torri asked.

"Still here," Aviva said.

"You be careful, okay. We're planning on staying here for a few days, at least until it all passes by. We'd really like you to join us," Torri said.

"I'm not a witch, I really can't join you right now," Aviva said.

"Oh, now, don't be like that," Torri said. "We're over your failures."

"Thanks for that Mum," Aviva said. "Gotta go." She hung up before her mother could give some fake apology. She'd always been the black sheep of the family.

She was the squib.

The ambulance stopped ten minutes later and she helped the ambulance's navigator unload the patient, carefully taking the beeping equipment with them.

"No! No! No! NO!" a woman said as she ran out of the hospital toward them. "No! We cannot have another!"

"Please mam," their driver said. "He's lost an arm; he's passed out."

"I don't care what his problems are, WE ARE FULL!" she put her finger into the man's chest with each of the last three words.

"Full?" Aviva asked. Full was a word she hadn't heard that day. "Surely you can find room for one more bed."

"We've used all of our back up beds and tables," the woman said. "We've got bodies on the floor now. Every inch of usable walking space is taken with bodies; both dead and alive. We don't even have room to walk around them. We've called in every doctor we have and we still have people waiting to be seen for five hours. We just don't have room for one more."

"Then what do we do?" the driver said. "No hospital in the metro is willing to take another."

"Then you have to heal him yourself. The damn wizards have got this place overflowing," the woman said. She turned and went back inside without a second glance.

Their driver turned and walked up to them. "What now?" he asked.

"We'll have to find another hospital," their navigator said.

"Where?" the driver said without even trying to hide his anger.

"Further out," the navigator said. "There's got to be another hospital somewhere."

"No!" the driver said. "There is no other hospital for God's sake!"

Aviva was hardly listening to the conversation. She'd been struck by the woman from the hospital, and specifically one word she had said. She'd told them to heal him; not operate on him or sedate him. Heal him.

When she'd been in school, she'd learned about the oath of all medical personnel: Do No Harm. About halfway through the lesson, she'd raised her hand and asked how far that oath went.

"What do you mean?" Professor Clarke had asked.

"Well, if it comes down to us or the patient, what do we do?" she'd asked.

"Well, our goal is to do no harm," Clarke had said. "But, if harm is unavoidable, don't injure more people. In the rare case that you cannot do anything for the patient safely then you don't harm yourself."

Aviva shook her head as the two men rambled on and on around her. "No," she said to Professor Clarke in her daydream. "You're wrong."

"Wrong?" the ambulance driver said. "How am I wrong?"

Trying to catch up, Aviva said "Sorry?"

"I was saying that there is no other hospital and you said I was wrong," the driver said.

I'm going to die for this, Aviva thought as she took a deep breath. "There is another hospital," she said. "But I'm going to have to navigate."

"You sure you know where you're going?" the driver asked her an hour later. She'd found out the driver's name was Hughes. She'd been taking them on a wild goose chase through the heart of London which wasn't exactly easy anymore.

"I'm looking for landmarks," Aviva said. "Most of which aren't still here."

"He's dying back there," Hughes reminded her.

"He'd be dying if we'd tried to go to the next city over too," she said. "Turn right up here."

He turned right and the open space of the blast zone appeared about a mile ahead.

"Yes, there's the McDonald's that my mother always took me to," Aviva said.

"Your mother?" Hughes asked.

Aviva felt her face blush. "Yeah, my father was very ill for about two years before he died. We practically lived at St. Mungo's."

"St. Mungo's?" Hughes asked. "Never heard of it."

"Yeah, I know," Aviva said. "The hospital is on the street one block to your right."

"There's no connecting street between here and the blast zone," Hughes said. "We'll have to turn around."

The walkie on the dash crackled. "Guys, he's gonna need to get there really soon," their third person said from the back.

"We don't have time to turn around," Aviva said. "Go through the blast zone."

"Are you nuts?" Hughes asked.

"You turn around he dies," Aviva reminded him. "What's his name anyway?"

"Our helper or the patient?" Hughes asked.

"Our helper," Aviva said.

"Green," Hughes said. He grabbed the walkie and said "Brace yourself." The ambulance bounced severely as it crossed into the beat up road of the blast zone. Hughes drove into some gray dust while trying to maintain sight of the road.

He pulled his air horn and watched a bit of the gray mud fly into the air. A badly damaged and potholed street became uncovered just ahead and Hughes pressed the brakes hard to turn gently onto the street.

Once he'd completed the turn, he saw the steel beam that was cutting it in two. Cursing, he pulled the ambulance left, toward ground zero, to avoid the beam. They bounced left and right as they drove over what was left of a building and finally arrived on what appeared a large street. He turned back away from ground zero and found the McDonald's that Aviva had pointed out. He looked for the next opening in the buildings and gently headed for it. Bouncing over another small shack, the ambulance pulled out of the blast zone and into the badly damaged street. He finally sped up.

"There!" Aviva said, pointing to the old looking red brick department store. A sign saying Purge and Dowse Ltd. was hanging dangerously over the entrance. A large, green garage door was badly painted next to it. The glass had been blown out but it was the least damaged building for miles.

"The store?" Hughes asked.

"It's disguised," Aviva said.

"Why do you disguise a hospital?" Hughes asked.

Aviva started to answer but closed her mouth. "Help Green get our patient out of the back," she said. "I'll...get us inside."

Hughes pulled the ambulance up next to the store and got out. He went to the back of the ambulance as Aviva walked up to the store front.

A large sign on the door appeared to read "CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT" but it was so faded it was hard to read. Several mannequins stood in the windows wearing clothes that were fashionable in about 2003. Several others were knocked onto the floor.

Aviva walked in front of the window extending between the two doors. She looked up at the female mannequin dressed in a horrible brown skirt and orange tights combination. "I have a patient for you," Aviva said to the mannequin. "He was injured in the blast."

Aviva could see Hughes and Green coming around the edge of the ambulance and trying to find somewhere to raise it onto the sidewalk. "Please," Aviva said to the mannequin. "I know you can hear me."

"We do not accept muggles," the mannequin said without moving.

"Now's not the time to do this," Aviva said.

"We didn't start it," the mannequin said. It turned to stare her down. Aviva could see Hughes and Green freeze as they watched it. "You are accusing wizards of everything. You and filth like you, you're the one starting a witch hunt."

"Every muggle hospital is full," Aviva said. "I know you have room in there and this man needs treatment! He needs Healing!"

"Take care of him yourself!" the mannequin said, its features starting to contort in anger. "I'll not have muggle filth defiling my halls!"

"I want to speak to the Head Healer," Aviva said, not backing down.

"You are," the mannequin said. "And the answer is still no."

"Damn it, you're this man's only hope!" Aviva said.

"Then maybe the muggles should have built more hospitals," the mannequin said. "They could have helped you."

"THIS ISN'T ABOUT TURF!" Aviva shouted. Hughes and Green had joined her now. "THIS MAN IS DYING AND I KNOW YOU HAVE THE ROOM TO HEAL HIM AND SEVERAL OTHERS TOO!"

"What makes you think that?" the mannequin asked unconcerned.

Aviva bit her lip. "Because no witch or wizard was injured in the blast," she said.

"Witch or wizard?" Hughes asked scandalized. "You took us to a magical hospital?"

"Wait, the magic stuff is real?" Green asked.

"They have room and they can help," Aviva repeated with as much conviction as she could muster.

"We need to reserve that room for witches and wizards," the mannequin said. "We've evicted all our muggles and I'll not have another, filthy-blooded ape inside these hallowed ha - " The mannequin doubled over as if suddenly dying and became silent.

"What just happened?" Green asked.

Suddenly a metal grinding sound came from their right as the garage door began to slowly rise to their right. Aviva remained where she was but tried to get a better view of the garage. At least sixteen beds sat empty inside the garage and two men stood at the door. One had a wand pulled and was raising the door. The other wore the green robes of a St. Mungo's healer. He beckoned them toward him as the door locked in place.

"Let's go," Aviva said, breaking the shock of her two helpers. They pushed the patient toward the garage.

"We'll help him," the healer said when they got close.

"Why would you help a non-magical person?" Green asked sincerely.

"Because it's the right thing to do," the other man said.

"John, take him to the muggle ward," the healer said. The other man laughed and nodded. Hughes helped him with the bed.

"What's so funny?" Aviva asked.

"We've had a couple of muggles here the past couple days," the healer said. "I don't think the Head Healer liked it much. We nicknamed it the muggle ward. They left with Harry Potter this morning."

"Harry, as in Albus?" Green asked.

"Albus' father, yes," the healer said. "And one of the most honorable families on the planet. I'll stand behind the Potter's character till I die."

"I don't know what to believe anymore," Green said. "This is out of character for wizards."

"No, this is in character for my mother's kind," Aviva said.

"Look, we've called in every available wand to help. Some of them don't know the healing spells. Do you know them, miss?" the healer asked.

"I'm a squib," Aviva said.

"That wasn't an answer," the healer said.

"I studied the spells when I was 9," Aviva said. "Back when my father was here. I still know the theory."

"Could you teach the new wands?" the healer asked.

"I'm needed in the ambulance," she said.

"We need you to direct everyone here if we're to fill up tonight," the healer said to Green. "Can you do that?"

"No, but Hughes might be able to," he said. "I could maybe learn eventually."

"Good. Please do that," the healer said.

"Why the change in policy? Why take in muggles when your Head is so against it?" Aviva asked. "Not that I'm complaining."

"There has been a mutiny," the healer said. "The Head Healer is no longer in charge."

"Who is?" Aviva said.

The healer smiled. "Scorpius Malfoy," he said.

"A Malfoy?" Aviva asked. "A Malfoy is helping others, let alone muggles?"

"Yup," the healer said.

"How long's he been here?" Aviva asked.

"Oh, he's just a rookie," the healer said.

"Great," Aviva mumbled as they walked inside, finally confident that something was going right today.

.