PART 38
James and Remus went down to Hogsmead town. There James ate a peanut and had a very bad reaction, and Remus summoned paramedics. A helicopter escorted them to St Mungos.
"How much does your head hurt, give me a number between one and ten," said Nurse Daffodil.
"112!" said James, crossing fingers behind his back for some of that morphine.
Nurse Daffodil noted it down and left the patient room.
Now was the time to put some healer hairs in test tubes of instant-poly, drink it and put on some healer clothes.
Done.
"Ok let's go find a theatre," said Remus.
"Cool what are we seeing?"
"Brain tissue and lots of wormy blood."
"Cool do you have tickets to that?"
They found a lift and took it to the bottom floor, where all the operating theatres were. They found some dispensers for hairnets and masks and gloves and put all that on before looking through the window of an operating theatre, where an operating session was taking place.
"Clear!" cried a doctor, giving a patient multiple shocks with a defibrillator. "Clear! Damn it I will not lose another patient!"
As soon as this batch of medical personnel were finished with their operation, and had cleaned up after themselves and left, James and Remus went inside.
Remus whipped out one of his catchy-balls. He threw it on the operating table. It split in half and Sirius appeared in a crack of smoke, lying down, unconscious from the anaesthetic Remus had put in his ginger ale.
They had brought the tools they had used on Roy. The operating theatre offered a greater selection of tools of vastly superior quality.
James picked up the defibrillator.
"Clear!" He pressed them on his chest and collapsed.
Remus had to use the defibrillators on him again to bring him back.
"Clear!"
James sat up.
"I saw wonderful beings of light. Does that mean the Christians have got it right?"
"Buddhists believe in heaven."
"Guess I'm going to heaven hooray!"
"Buddhists don't really want to go anywhere."
"I'm not a Buddhist so still, hooray!"
"Speaking of going to heaven…," glance at Sirius's unconscious being. "I'm having second thoughts."
"Look man we've discussed this already. This is the best place to do it. You did a pretty neat job with Roy. However, should we screw up, we have nurses and doctors readily available. And also, he's already here, all plugged in. I mean, I assume we better plug some tubes in him, they always do in Spells & Curses. There's something wrong with the TV..."
James banged the ECG screen.
"So why not just get one of those doctors to do it?"
"Look man we've discussed it already. We've met far too many medical people who claim earwyrms aren't real. I just don't trust them. Money under the table. But if we screw up, it's different. They have to help if he's already dying because of the hypocritical oat."
"Thanks now I am sure again."
"But it's going to be fine and at least I know we have the same blood type so there's that."
"I guess we better plug in those tubes, then."
They found those tubes and IV bags and plugged them into Sirius's veins. They also found some electrode patches. Remus began to unbutton Sirius's shirt. James began to hum Let's Get It On. Remus gave him a look.
"Come on!"
"What? Just got it stuck in my head, that's all."
Shirt off, Remus stuck a bunch of electrode patches on Sirius and plugged them to the green heart zig-zag screen.
Preparations done. Since James wasn't the one going to healer school, it was put to him to read the instructions from a medical book.
"Make an incision in the hippocampus amygdala pre-frontal cortex lobe." Show illustration. "It's in the middle of the forehead."
Remus had done this before with Roy so he found the right thingy to use for it: a kind of needle on a special drill. He cleaned the area, he dried it, he tried to keep his hand steady. He told his hand to stop shaking. His nerves exhausted him so much he had to put the drill down and sit down.
"I don't think I can do it!"
"It's ok I believe in you!"
"Or maybe I believe in you! I haven't dissected anything for three years."
"You dissected Roy and you have read the instructions so many times."
"But you, you butter toast with such precision!"
It was clear that none of them wanted the responsibility for screwing up. It was even clearer that they had to act fast. They couldn't ask a healer. Mentioning earwyrms made them so uncooperative.
They gawked at Sirius, like he was the northern lights or something, and began to question their sexualities. They managed to snap out of it.
"We should have just talked to Dumbledore shouldn't we?" said James.
Remus's ears began to steam.
"I'VE SAID THAT LIKE LOADS OF TIMES!"
"But, did you do it?"
"Yes."
"Well? If he had said something useful you would have mentioned it."
"All I asked was if, hypothetically, he could do a procedure like this. He said he very much could not but you know some people are just so self-deprecating."
"I don't even believe you."
Remus smacked his forehead.
"I am so stupid!"
"Can you stick to the topic, please?"
"Why don't we ask Mr Hagrid?"
"Why ask Mr Hagrid?"
"He's dabbled in veterinary healing."
James nodded. "And you consider Padfoot to be one sexy beast. I do see your reasoning but Mr Hagrid doesn't exactly pipe his cupcakes with precision or time his minuets."
"Piping cupcakes is hard."
Fetching Mr Hagrid seemed like the proper route to take. It was put to Remus to go and get him.
"It's going to take so long!" said James.
"I'll try to be quick."
"Mr Hagrid could have cupcakes in the oven. Healers could come in here any second. I don't suppose..," James glanced at Remus's bag, "you have something… for that?"
Remus thought about it. He rummaged in his bag.
"Ok I got it."
"Is it something from the Philippines?"
"Yep."
"Is it the Ass Wang?"
"Nope. Just don't leave this room."
Remus left the operating theatre. James got a little bored waiting. He had no means of passing the time so he just wound up looking at Sirius. That made time go by in a flash.
"Ok we're back," said Remus when he came in with a very large and robust looking healer that kind of resembled Jeff Lynne.
"Cor blimey that was quick," said James.
Everything was ready, all the tools laid out, it only remained for Mr Hagrid to pick them out and do his thing. The incision area had been disinfected before but Remus disinfected it again for good measure. Mr Hagrid picked up the drill.
"I don't know why I went along with this," he said. "It's different with magical creatures."
"But he is a magical creature!" said James. "Look!"
Mr Hagrid looked at Sirius and sure enough, when he snapped out of it, an entire hour had gone by.
"Where did the time go? How is it that no healers have come in here by now?"
"I put a kapre out there," said Remus.
"Aren't they very small and green?"
"Anybody who gets too close will get lost or something."
"And that," said James, pointing at Sirius. "is a real veela!"
Mr Hagrid rolled his eyes and snorted.
"Everybody wants to shag me, boo fricken hoo! My beauty makes me a magical creature!" Another snort, mixed with a bit of grunt. "These days everybody and their gran is a quarter goblin or half-unicorn like it's trendy!"
"I know," said Remus. "They know nothing about the real struggle."
"I'm only a normal looking human 29,5 days at a time, so difficult!"
"How many meds are you on?"
"Maybe we should try and focus," said James. "Now is not the time to brag about who's more beast."
"Oh, okay!" said Remus.
Mr Hagrid bowed all the way to the floor.
"The wizard has spoken! We must obey master!"
"Oppressor..."
"Please?" James begged.
Mr Hagrid was just as prone to self-doubt, but recalling the time he had neutered a dragon gave him confidence.
"Do they have a penis in their brain or what?" James asked.
"You have a penis in the brain!"
Mr Hagrid saw that all the tubes were plugged in, all screens were on, all machines were going: ping! He saw that all the tools he needed were laid out and that an empty overhead projector was waiting. He got started.
James saw that even without the eyeliner and mascara, Sirius had very long and dark eyelashes.
"Ok I'm finished now," said Mr Hagrid.
"Cor blimey already?"
"Already? It took me three hours. And you're sure you are the same blood type?"
James saw that he had a tube hanging from his arm, where blood had been extracted. He felt dizzy. He was holding a tin of Quality Street and he couldn't even remember how it had gotten there. He unwrapped an orange triangle and popped it in his mouth.
"Did it go ok?"
"It didn't look like you had fainted but you did become very unresponsive."
"I mean, is Sirius going to be ok?"
"Only time will tell. But so far it's looking promising. The earwyrms have been removed. The overhead projector must be thrown into deep space. It's the only way to deal with overhead projectors."
"The ECG looks ok," said Remus.
"Yes," James agreed. "Just like in Spells & Curses."
"I only had to defibrillate him one time."
"Damn you could have woken me up!"
"Look I tried but you just couldn't take your eyes off his sculpted lips."
"I hope you didn't put the defibrillators on his sculpted lips by accident!"
"Pfft. Of course I didn't."
However, Sirius did have some strange grill marks on his cheeks.
"I guess we are done here," said Mr Hagrid. "I better get back to piping my cupcakes."
"Is it, like, safe to move him and stuff?" James asked.
"Oh sure. Just don't drop him on the head!"
They all laughed at the silly idea!
Remus threw an empty catchemal-ball at Sirius, and the catchemal ate him. It bounced off him and hit the operating table, so Sirius came out again. He rolled off the operating table and hit the floor head first.
"Woops?"
"I'm sure it's fine let's just get out of here!" said James.
But alas! Too late!
They thought that the healers had finally managed to get rid of the kapre that would have been playing tricks on them and misdirected them away from the operating theatre for the past several hours.
Even worse!
Professor McGonagall, of all people, came barging in.
"What in the devil's name is going on here?!" she yelled.
"Sirius had earwyrms," Mr Hagrid explained. "I have removed them."
Professor McGonagall had her wand drawn.
"There is NO SUCH THING as EARWYRMS!"
She stunned Mr Hagrid first, the chaps second.
x
Professor McGonagall put her wand in her robes and shifted back into her favoured form.
Bellatrix felt her waistline. She had definitely had one too many blancmanges lately. She slimmed down some more.
Sirius lied on the floor, anaesthetised, with his head in bandage and multiple tubes hanging from his arms. Bella yanked out all of them.
"So you can make the Dark Lord all goo-goo eyed," she said, scornfully, "but can you do this?"
She blinked. Several eyes plopped all over her head, literally giving her eyes in the back and incredible surround-vision. She blinked all her eyes, and all but two went away. Not the right two, so she blinked again.
Looking down at Sirius, Bella's lips curled in disdain.
"You veelas have it easy! You never have to pretend…," Bella could feel her eyes well up when she thought about how the Dark Lord was going to react, if he ever saw her true form,
"I mean, what's a little scale? If he ever found out I'm actually a man..."
Bella pushed the thoughts away, put one arm around Sirius and teleported away.