Harry stepped off the elevator ten minutes to noon and set off down the empty hall. This area of the ministry was clearly less used than the rest, seeing as it didn't have any other function besides a floor of empty rooms to be used for testing—ranging anywhere from proctored OWL's and NEWT's exams for those who didn't attend Hogwarts, to specialized exams like the ones Harry was there to take to test into an apprenticeship/mastery of any given field, to apparation license testing. Harry would likely be back in a good two to three years to take an exam to see if he could start his residency at St. Mungos or some other magical hospital and work towards his mastery that would allow him to become a full Healer.
Harry was lucky to have gotten this opportunity when he did, since most didn't start their internship until after graduating Hogwarts, and then spent the next five-six years on their internship and residency. He'd received a hell of a head start and he would prove today that they hadn't been misguided in allowing him this chance.
He stopped when he found the door labeled 9A, and took a deep breath and shook out his hands slightly to rid him of his nerves before straightening his posture and entering the room.
The room was large—much larger than one would need for the six occupants of the room—and a little colder than he'd expected but it only served to sharpen his awareness. Harry plastered on his best smile as he stepped up to the table of five St. Mungo representatives.
"Hello, my name is Harry Po-" Harry's polite greeting was cut short by a dismissive wave of one of the older men's hand.
"Yes, it's wonderful to meet you, Henry. We're on a bit of a schedule today, so if you don't mind." He gestured to the single desk and chair facing their table from a few meters away, with a small stack of papers and self-inking quill sat on top. The greying man looked and sounded like this was the last place he wanted to be and that this was all just a waste of his time. Harry nodded his head and took his seat without another word, feeling a little out of sorts from the almost-rude interaction.
Harry was actually pleasantly surprised when he finally looked down at the exam and found the questions to be open-answered instead of multiple choice. At least with this he could show how much he really knew and wasn't limited to just proving that he knew enough. He picked up the quill they provided him and immediately started his test.
He was a bit disappointed with how vague and simple a lot of the questions were, but he supposed it couldn't be too hard for an internship, especially since Hogwarts didn't exactly provide any classes on the topic and so everything had to be learned either through self-study or with private tutors. No matter, Harry took the questions given to him and expanded on them, gave in depth answers and references to similar procedures or conditions and the methods of treating such afflictions in other countries. For the first time, he really went all out. If they were going to treat him like a waste of time, he'd leave them begging for more. He wouldn't settled for 'adequate.'
It took a little over an hour to finish the test. Harry signed his name with a flourish and stood from his seat, much to the relief of both his sore backside and vexation of the five older men whose modicum of patience seems to have dried up by the half-hour mark. Harry approached with a neutral smile and handed over his tests to the man who had snubbed him earlier and he in turn handed them off to the man beside him without even glancing at them.
"Healer Rostoff will evaluate your answers while we move on to a small practical portion of the exam." The man rose stiffly from his chair and with the flick of his wand, the door on the other side of the room swung open. A moment later, a woman walked in with a bright, open expression on her face. She was young—perhaps in her mid-late twenties—and had shiny straight blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail at her crown. She flashed a dazzling smile at him and there was a bit of a bounce in her step as she approached.
"Medi-witch Christine Brooke here has kindly volunteered to be your patient." The man continued gruffly, looking like a wet stone in comparison to the beaming sunshine of the Medi-witch's presence. "For the practical portion, we ask that you examine Ms. Brooke, diagnose her, and treat her." He intoned blandly. Another wave of his wand and the desk Harry had vacated transfigured into an examination table.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Medi-witch Brooke, I'm Harry." He held out his hand and she didn't hesitate to grasp it in her own smaller hand.
"The pleasure's all mine, Mr. Potter. And you can just call me Crissy." Harry's eyebrows rose at the use of his last name, even though he didn't show up in the paper nearly as often as he used to. Despite his surprise, Harry just smiled and helped Crissy up onto the table. The other healers, aside from Healer Rostoff who was still working on his test, got up and made a shallow semi-circle on the other side of the table to observe.
Crissy sat on the table with a little swing in her feet as she waited eagerly. Harry, for his part, fell into a focused mindset and the world melted away as he thought. Clearly there was something he was meant to find and diagnose on Crissy, but it wasn't immediately obvious just from looking at her. It probably wasn't meant to be difficult though, considering how easy the written exam was. Harry took out his wand and started with a simple diagnostic spell. He distantly heard one of the healers scribbling notes, probably to log everything he did for the record.
The diagnostic spell came back clear, though he wasn't too surprised. The spell would only tell him if there were any external injuries or bruising. There had to be some challenge, right? Harry looked past Crissy to the audience of healers.
"Am I allowed to ask her questions?"
"You may, so long as you don't ask directly what is wrong with her or ask for help." Another one of the healers piped up with a flat tone. Harry nodded and returned his focus to Crissy.
He began to cycle through a roster of questions to build up a resource of information that he might use later. He asked basic questions about her sleeping, eating, and stress habits. It seemed that Crissy was a relatively healthy twenty-five-year-old who wasn't very athletic, but enjoyed hiking occasionally and has pretty healthy eating habits. She slept at least seven hours a night and takes care of a cat name Stubby.
Harry lightly rested the tip of his wand against the side of her ribs and asked her to breathe deeply while he listened to her lungs with a micro form of the sonorus charm. Clear. He moved his wand to her back as she continued to breathe deep. Also clear. He pulled his wand away and as he did, Crissy switched from breathing through her mouth to her nose and there was an abrupt halt to the air before she switched back to breathing through her mouth. He took a closer look at her blank face and noted the slight redness to her eyes as well as some redness just under her nose that he hadn't noticed before. Really? A cold. That's it?
He knew it wouldn't be too difficult, but wasn't this too easy? Harry internally sighed and decided he would finish his examination before confirming that she had a mild head-cold and just needed a pepper-up potion to clear it all out. Harry moved his want to the area just over her heart and listened to the steady rhythm in the quiet room. Harry was just counting the beats per minute, when he heard something that caught his attention almost instantly. Harry closed his eyes to fully concentrate on the sound.
Ba-bum. . . Ba-bum. . . Ba-bum. . . Baaahh. . .
There! Harry continued to listen to see if it happened again and if there was any kind of pattern to it. It was so subtle at first, just barely noticeable until he was waiting for it. Every few beats, the distinct 'Ba-bum' of the heart fused into one beat that lasted a fraction of a second too-long. Harry pulled back and canceled the spell on his wand.
"Would you mind laying back on the table for me, Crissy?" Harry asked politely. Crissy looked confused, but complied anyway as she swung her legs up and spun in her seat to lay out flat on the table. The healers all gave Harry similarly skeptical looks.
"I hardly think that's necessary. You've already done a thorough examination; you should know by now what's wrong. If you don't know by now, then we're really just wasting our time here." The healer from before groused, words dripping with condescension.
"I already knew that she has a mild cold. All she'd need for that is a pepper-up potion." Harry answered sternly, no longer having the patience to try to be polite to the bull-headed healers. The man responsible for most of his ire tossed his hands out as if to say 'yeah, so what the hell are you doing?' Meanwhile, Harry began to draw a runic circle that glowed like embers in the air.
"However, during my examination, I discovered that Crissy here has a strange heart arrythmia that I suspect points to something that might cause her to go into cardiac arrest if I were to give her a potion that would jack her heartrate up like a pepper-up would." The healers devolved into incredulous and worried murmurs as he cast. The runic circle flared from a burning orange to a white-blue when it was completed. Harry directed it with the tip of his wand and told Crissy—who was looking more alarmed than anyone else—to stay still as he pulled the runic circle over her head and began to slowly pull it down so that it caught her entire body from head to toe.
When he was done, the circle glowed green and Harry turned it horizontally and starting from eye-level, he pulled the circle down and before their eyes, a transparent version of Crissy formed out of the top of the circle until he reached the ground and it settled there. The healers made noises of surprise and confusion.
"What in Circe's name is that?" the man who'd been jotting down notes asked, hands hovering hesitantly over his parchment in shock.
"It's a magical simulation. It was invented in the US at first as a safe way to test magical cosmetics and potions. In the last decade, it has boomed in complexity and popularity and was quickly picked up by the American Magical Medicine Association to use as an ethical way of practicing and learning medicine, testing new procedures, and even made waves in diagnostics and the study of magical diseases. There's a reason the US is coming out with ground-breaking medical advancements each and every year." The last bit came out with a touch of condescension of his own, knowing that Britain was decades behind most countries when it came to magical medicine. He'd discovered the simulation early in his expanded studying and it had helped him immensely with learning about the human body.
Harry indicated to the slightly transparent projection of Crissy standing beside him.
"This has taken a full body scan, both internally and externally, so that I can take a look at Crissy's heart and verify for myself that there's something wrong." Harry waved his hand over sim-Crissy's chest and it was like her skin, muscles, and ribs disappeared so that they could all see the inside of her thoracic cavity.
"Wicked." Crissy gushed with bright eyes sparkling with fascination as she leaned up on her elbows and looked into her own open chest.
Harry looked over his shoulder and gave her a crooked smile before turning back to the simulation and adjusting it a few more times with the waves and gestures of his hands. Soon the simulation was transformed into only displaying Crissy's beating heart and Harry once again waved away the top of the outer wall of the heart so that they could see inside.
"Right there! If you look at the bottom of the interventricular septum, there's a hole between the two chambers." Harry pointed out, never taking his eyes off of the simulation even as he heard the healers walking up behind him to get a closer look. The hole was only about the size of a fingernail and the position near the bottom of the heart meant that it was mostly folded closed, but every few beats it would open and blood would rush through to the other chamber.
"It's likely a birth defect that was never caught before. Its why Crissy's blood pressure is fairly low, and why she seems averse to sports and a high-intensity cardio despite being quite interested in her own health." Harry theorized as he watched her heart. "She likely hasn't even realized the effects it has on her yet, but as she gets older, or in any strenuous circumstances it might become quite serious." He spoke calmly, but he didn't downplay the severity of the condition. Like he said earlier, a pepper-up potion or something that puts similar strain on her heart could disrupt the electrical impulses and stall her heart, sending her into cardiac arrest. Harry hesitated to voice his next thoughts, knowing it was a longshot.
"If you'd allow me—under your supervision of course—I would like to try treating her." Harry broached, pulling back the attention of the gob-smacked healers to himself, where they looked even more amazed.
"How old did you say you were?" One of them asked.
"I didn't, but I turned sixteen at the end of last July." He answered candidly, no longer surprised that they seemed to have known nothing about the person they were testing that day.
"While that is certainly impressive and you seem to be quite intelligent young man, we simply cannot allow-"
"Let him try." Everyone in the room turned to Healer Rostoff, who'd been all but forgotten as he sat off to the side.
"Pardon?" The other healer balked incredulously.
"You should read this, Healer Greyson." Was all Rostoff said, holding out Harry's test. Healer Greyson strode forward and practically snatched the test out of his outstretched hand. The rest of the room waited in bated silence as the man slowly flipped through the test. His back was to them, so they couldn't read his expression. Then he stopped flipping through the pages all together and just read. And then, after a few minutes, he turned around without a word and walked straight up to Harry.
"Where did you learn this?" His tone was deadly serious as he pointed to Harry's answer on one of the questions. Confused, Harry took the test and skimmed his own writing to see what the man was referring to. He quickly realized as he read what they were so worked up about.
"Well, if you're asking where I learned about cellular manipulation, it was in a few magical medical text books that my school's Medi-witch lent me. However, if you're asking where I learned the modified procedure, I didn't learn it anywhere. I saw a couple of flaws in the base process and came up with a few theories, tested them, and then eventually came to that version." He answered evenly. Harry had spent hours poring over a simulated version of his own body, damaging it and then testing new ways to fix it. Many trials and failures later, he'd streamlined the process. He turned a thirty-hour operation into a twenty-minute procedure. He'd tested it many times since, which was why he was confident that he could help Crissy without a problem.
"Yo- . . . You made it?!" Healer Greyson blanched and seemed to lose himself to an avalanche of thoughts while another healer reached past him and grabbed the papers and the other three healers shuffled in close to read it together.
After a minute, Greyson seemed to snap out of it and straightened up.
"With our supervision, I don't see a problem in letting you treat your patient." He'd clearly tried to come off as nonchalant, but the eagerness in his eyes was near child-like. Harry ducked his head shortly in thanks and moved back over to the table where Crissy was still leaning up on her elbows with a big curious question mark on her face. Harry offered a warm expression to keep her from potentially flipping out now that he'd been given permission to treat her.
"Would it be alright with you if I treated you, Crissy?" He asked first and foremost. Afterall, he couldn't really imagine anyone willingly choosing someone untrained for such a serious procedure over an experienced professional.
"I suppose it's fine. I mean, you can't really mess me up too bad with five other healers in the room on hand." Crissy shrugged one shoulder and laid back down on the table. Harry was a bit perplexed by her nonchalance, but decided to take her word for it. Harry pulled out his wand and shed his jacket before approaching the table once again, where the Healers were finished looking over his test and standing around the table to observe.
"Alright Crissy, I'm going to put you into stasis. I'm not sure if you've done this before, but you won't process any passage in time, so you'll blink and its done. When it's over, I'm going to ask you a few questions and run a few tests to make sure your body is accepting the new tissues. After that, you'll be free to move around and go about your life as usual. I just ask that in about a week or so, you get another check-up on your heart to screen for any anomalies." Harry explained thoroughly, feeling an odd thrill in his gut at being able to put on his 'healer persona' for the first time. Crissy nodded and Harry began to cast the powerful stasis charm used regularly in the medical field for procedures where the patient needed to be sedated.
Crissy went completely still, eyes half-closed in a blink and chest unmoving as she didn't even breathe. Her blood wouldn't even be moving through her veins at this point. In response, Harry heard a flurry of quills scratching against parchment as the healers took their own notes. Next, Harry dragged his wand in a circle over where Crissy's heart was.
"Visum internum." Harry incanted clearly as he pulled his wand up and a cross-section view of Crissy's heart came into view above her body. This way Harry could work without having to actually open her up. He began to chant lowly under his breath as he fed magic into Crissy and it showed up on the cross-section as a dim glow as it passed through the tissues and reached the malformed interventricular septum. Figuring they'd want a play-by-play of everything he did with how avidly they were taking notes, Harry spoke up then.
"I've reached the septum. I'm now going to vanish the septum and begin regeneration." Harry announced softly as he concentrated. The magic in her heart coated the septum and promptly vanished it with neat clean edges that didn't bleed under stasis. Now came the tricky part. Harry's awareness dripped through the feed of his magic and down into the chambers of her heart, all of his focus and concentration on the magic within her. Using the DNA tangled deep within the remaining cells at the edges of the vanished septum, Harry was able to coax the cells into dividing at incredible speeds. Using the genetic templates already there, the tissues slowly began to grow and reform their structures without the defect.
It took an intimate understanding of anatomy and physiology of the human body, as well as the magic and science behind cellular manipulation to be able to stream-line such a process. It also took an astronomical level of control over one's own magic, and enough magic to constantly feed into another person without risking magical exhaustion. Honestly, Harry wasn't sure if everybody would be capable of such a procedure no matter how long they trained and studied for it. He had a lot of gifts and assets on his side to make it possible for him. But it seemed to go unsaid amongst the healers that Harry was a bit of a special case.
Ten minutes later, the septum was nearly complete and it looked nice, thick, and healthy on the cross section. The nerves had formed nicely and the endocardium tissues looked absolutely flawless. When he was sure that the regeneration was complete, Harry slowly pulled Crissy out of stasis, starting only with her heart and watching the cross-section unblinkingly as it gave its first full contraction and pushed blood through the vessels. It was perfect.
Smiling triumphantly, Harry lifted the stasis charm and watched happily as Crissy's heart pulsed strongly in her chest. Crissy watched for a moment as well, almost holding her breath as she waited for that one weak beat or for the whole heart to stop, but it never did. She sighed in relief and slowly sat up with Harry's help. While the healers were busy finishing up their notes, Harry did as he'd said he would and ran a few tests on Crissy while he discussed with her what to expect, what she could do now, and any warning signs to look out for in the future that she would need to see a healer about immediately.
Soon enough, the healers cast a few cautionary diagnostic spells on her and sent her on her way.
Harry pulled his jacket back on and waited patiently off to the side while the healers seemed to be debating and arguing about something serious on the other side of the room. He hadn't technically done anything wrong, so long as he didn't absolutely bomb the written exam he should have passed without much issue, so he didn't know what they were discussing so fiercely. Occasionally one of them would gesture towards Harry or shake his test papers in the face of another healer. After a few minutes, though, they seemed to have reached some sort of consensus and turned to approach Harry.
Healer Rostoff was the one to speak, offering a pleasant smile as he addressed Harry.
"Mr. Potter, I'd like to congratulate you on passing the exam with perfect scores. By all means, you are more than ready to begin your internship at St. Mungo's this fall." Rostoff announced and Harry felt a wave of relief sweep through him. However, some of his nervousness crept back in when the smile on the man's face faded into something a bit more neutral.
"Though, after discussing it with my colleagues, we've decided that we would be remiss to place you in a position that you are clearly over qualified for. We believe that your current aptitude is far exceeding that of an intern, and your time and potential would be wasted cleaning bed-pans and dressing scrapes and small burns. If you would spare us a bit more of your time today, we would like to give you another exam. This time, we would be testing you to see if you are at a place to join our residency program. You wouldn't even need to take the practical, as your previous performance was exemplary and beyond what we would have had you do for this anyways." Rostoff was once more grinning excitedly, looking as though his eyes were begging Harry to agree.
The raven was astounded to say the least. Residency?! That would mean treating his own patients on a regular basis and getting to observe and even participating in advanced cases and operations. It was one step below full healership! Harry would essentially be working on his mastery. He'd never even imagined that that might have been an option for him until he'd graduated Hogwarts and completed his internship. In terms of a muggle equivalent, it was like skipping med-school all together and going straight to working in a hospital. It was ludicrous! Absolutely unprecedented.
"I-. . . I haven't studied for that." Harry tried meekly, still dazed and overwhelmed by the offer. He wanted to leave and think about it, assess what accepting such an opportunity would mean for him and his current schooling at Hogwarts. But he was also terrified of letting it pass him by and losing out.
"What about school?" He asked incredulously. As far as he knew, starting a mastery before taking your NEWT's was unheard of. Rostoff glanced back at the other healers and one of them quickly stepped forward with an answer for him.
"Our residency program is quite flexible! With the permission of your guardians and head of house, you can transfer a few of your classes to an independent study course, which would free up a few days a week for you so that you can be at St. Mungo's. If you believe you can balance the work load, we can certainly make it work. By skipping the internship, you'll be tested once a month to ensure that you're at the same level as the other residents, but you otherwise won't be given much work outside of your time at the hospital." The healer assured and Harry felt his worries abate.
He had quite an easy time in his school work anyways and was far enough ahead in a few classes that he could probably stop taking them all together and still pass his NEWT's. If he only needed to be at the hospital a few days a week . . . it was feasible.
"You said you had another test for me."