Chapter Three: Triage

Susan pressed two fingers to the inside of Ron's wrist, watching the second hand sweep around her watch. "Hey," she said softly as his eyelids fluttered open.

"Hey," he whispered back, his voice raspy. "Can I have a some water?"

"Promise me it will stay inside, and yes, you may." She reached for a pitcher on the bedside table and poured a cupful. "Lean forward, so I can put another pillow behind you. Don't want you getting it down your front."

Ron sipped the water thoughtfully as Susan checked over his chart. "So how did I get here, then?"

Susan grinned. "Well, I hear that you were shuttled from ward to ward all night long. After all, it was probably a case of food poisoning, not something that needed magical attention. I think they're still cleaning the snails up. How many of those things did you eat, anyway? In the end, since we stopped it with half a Puking Pastille from Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, we decided to blame the incident on your brothers slipping you something, and since your brothers could be classified as beasts, you ended up in Creature-Induced Injuries. All for insurance and billing purposes, of course."

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Of course. Still, I'd better be out of here before Smethwyck finds out, right?"

"Probably." Susan's lips straightened into a grim line. "Go home and go to bed. You need to drink plenty of fluids and get some rest. I haven't heard of anything quite so disgusting in a while."

"Oh, I've had worse," Ron said sagely. "Slugs."

Susan rolled her eyes. "I don't want to know. Your clothes are still in the laundry, but I'll see you get some scrubs. Unless you'd rather Floo home in that. It'll be a windy ride, but I think you'd better not Apparate until you're feeling better," she finished, gesturing to Ron's hospital gown.

Ron turned a shade of coral as he realized that someone on the staff must have seen a great deal of him since he didn't remember dressing himself in the open-back gown. It was one thing to change the clothes of a patient, but having your own changed--Ron shuddered slightly and leaned back into the pillows, swallowing the last of the water.

Susan hadn't closed the curtains completely when she left, and Ron could see a patch of gray sky through the window. He could also see one sensibly-shod foot dangling over the edge of a chair. Ron grabbed the bedrail and pulled himself to the edge of the mattress so he could brush the curtain aside.

Hermione was curled awkwardly in her seat. She looked sure to have a cramp in her neck when she woke up. Ron watched her sleep, trying to remember when she'd last been so quiet. Her mouth was slack and a little, frowning vee wrinkled her forehead between her eyebrows. Dark circles ringed her eyes and her cheeks had the rosy flush of an overtired child.

Goyle yanked open the curtain on the other side, dumping an armload of pale green robes onto the end of the bed. His gaze settled on Ron, then Hermione, then Ron again. "You want me to wake her?"

"No." Ron brushed his blankets aside and shakily got to his feet. Goyle was standing a little too close for comfort and was still staring at Hermione. "Go on," he whispered, pushing Goyle's mass out of the way and flicking the curtain closed so that he could dress in private. Twice he had to sit down and wait for a wave of leftover nausea to pass, but he managed to cover all the important bits before facing the inevitable.

When he drew back the curtain she was still there, looking just as uncomfortable as before. Ron sighed and kneeled down next to her, putting a hand on her arm. "Hermione," he whispered.

Her eyelids fluttered and she mumbled, "No, you have to help him...please, I don't know what's wrong...he's sick again..."

Krum, as usual, he thought morosely. Not wanting to startle her, Ron threaded his fingers through hers and gently shook her hand. "Wake up."

Hermione's eyes opened and she blinked owlishly. "Ron?" She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "I was"--she yawned--"so worried."

"Worried that I would get well and that you'd have no 'purpose'?" Ron asked in spite of himself. As soon as Hermione drew back, her face shuttered and pale, he wished he could take it back. But a part of him didn't want to have to take it back; there was nothing in the statement that was a lie.

"I have to go," she said, getting to her feet with obvious discomfort. Ron reached to help her up, but found that he didn't want to release her arm. "Let me go." She lowered her voice. "Please."

"We need to have this out, Hermione."

"Yes, but not here."

"Right." Ron's knees shook and he freed Hermione from his grasp to lean--he hoped casually--against the bed. "You'll need time to do your research and prepare your arguments about why I'm not good enough the way I am."

Ignoring her cry of protest, Ron pushed himself up and walked downstairs, rubber-legged, to the Floo entrance.

* * *

"Sooooosan." Muriel Hopkirk waved a file folder over her head as if she were flagging down a taxi rather than a passing Healer. "You're going to need this. Smethwyck will want to see it, remember."

"What for?" Susan asked absently as she stopped to flip through the stack of charts waiting on the receptionist's desk. "Is there anyone here that needs to come up to Creatures?"

"Well," Muriel said slowly, "there might be...but your review is in an hour and I checked, of course, to see if you'd completed your report. It's a good portion of the review, you know, dear." A patronizing smile squirmed its way across her face. "Don't tell me you haven't been preparing?"

Susan stared at Muriel blankly. "I'm being evaluated? Again? Why wasn't I informed?"

Muriel lifted one finger that ended in a red-polished nail toward the board where the names of St. Mungo's staff members were listed, followed by their location. As Susan looked, Ron's status faded from 'Creature-Induced Injuries' and was replaced with 'off duty.' Her own name was listed as 'checking entrance for CI patients.'

"I don't see anything," she said, rather crossly.

Muriel sighed, rolling her eyes. She placed her patent-leather pumps firmly on the floor and rolled herself over the black and white checkered tiles until she was within arm's reach of the board. "There," she said, tapping a line of print at the bottom so tiny that Susan had to squint to be sure it was not simply a stray mark. "Nine o'clock. It's been up all week. I'm sure you'll want to be on time, so you'd better hurry." She rolled back to her desk and pulled a set of charts out of a drawer. "Here's a pair that came in not ten minutes ago."

Fuming, Susan snatched the charts out of Muriel's hands and skimmed through the pages. This was deliberate, she thought to herself. Before she could get good and angry, a whimper from the chairs distracted her.

A man sat balancing two small children on his lap. "It will be all right, love. They'll come for us soon," he whispered to the girl. To the boy, he said, "Stiff upper lip. After all, it should be easy!"

"What happened here?" Susan knelt before the group. Each of the children was covered in hundreds of slender spines. A tear slid down the boy's cheek, bouncing between them and, oddly enough, reminding Susan of the time she'd stumbled into a pachinko parlor during a trip to Knockturn Alley for supplies. She lifted a hand and touched a finger to the girl's face. It was a mass of hives where the spines were embedded in her flesh.

"It's my fault, I'm afraid." Susan looked at the children's--father? It was hard to see any resemblance between the puffy-faced children and the chiseled features of the older man. "We were camping, and they wandered off. Ran into a patch of Horklumps."

Wandered off. Unsupervised while their parents drank up the Ogden's Old, more likely. "Well, we'll need to get these out right away before infection sets in." Susan considered her options. There wasn't enough icerplant upstairs for the both of them, and there wasn't likely to be more until the medicines were restocked. "This way."

Susan's heels clacked sternly against the floor as she led them out of the waiting area, down the hallway opposite Artifact Accidents, and around a corner. On one side was the Floo entrance. A half-dozen Healers waited to sort and stabilize incoming patients or to direct them to the proper floor. Sometimes, an owl would swoop in with an urgent note and a Healer would run up to the roof to Apparate or jump headfirst into the fire in response. The Floo entrance Healers--the emergency crew--were known for being slightly insane. Longer than normally long hours, split second decisions, and life-or-death procedures were their specialty. There but for the grace of Smethwyck go I, Susan thought, as she ushered her patients into one of the small rooms across the hall.

"Off with your things. The spines didn't go through your clothes, did they?" When the children shook their heads, Susan handed them each a hospital gown. "I'll help you," she said, motioning for the girl to come closer, "and you boys go behind the curtain until we call."

A minute later the children sat side by side on the crinkly paper that covered the examination table. "Who's first?"

The boy puffed out his chest, and his bristles on his face wiggled as he spoke. "Mackenzie can go first. I don't feel a thing."

"All right. Now," she said, seating herself before Mackenzie and pulling a tray of instruments close, "does Mackenzie have any allergies, Mr.--"

"Warcastle. Ajax Warcastle. No, not that I know of." Warcastle smiled hesitantly at his daughter. "I'm sure it won't hurt a bit, lass."

Susan put on a grim smile. In the three years she'd worked at St. Mungo's, she'd only had a handful of pediatric cases. It was going to hurt. "No more than it has to." She squirted a little icerplant gel onto a cotton swab and began to dab at the hives. "This will numb your skin a little, and then I'll have to pull out the spines one by one. If it starts to hurt, tell me and we'll put on more gel."

Mackenzie gasped when Susan picked up the sharp pair of tweezers. "It will be all right," Susan whispered. "Just hold still."

Thirty minutes later, she pulled the last spine out. Blood tricked from scores of tiny lesions, but a flick of Susan's wand had the cuts sealing themselves. "Promise me you won't scratch. It's going to itch as it heals, and when it does, I want you to put this on it," she finished, handing Mackenzie a tube of aloe ointment. She tilted her head, inspecting her handiwork. Mackenzie's eyes were red from crying and her nut-colored curls were escaping from her pigtails. However, her skin, although currently rosy and irritated, looked like it would heal without scarring.

"Michael next," Mackenzie said. "Oh, don't worry. Papa was right. You won't feel a thing." She slid off the table and climbed into her father's lap, snickering behind her hand as her brother paled.

Susan's gaze flicked to the girl and her father. She could see where Mackenzie got her curls, though Warcastle's eyes were a piercing blue where Mackenzie's, and Michael's, were warm brown. It wasn't until Warcastle cleared his throat that she realized she was staring. Her cheeks were warm as she focused her attention on Michael.

Mackenzie chattered away, much improved, as Susan painstakingly plucked the spines from Michael's skin. "We weren't supposed to go round the bend, Papa, we knew that, but we were chasing this toad, and he kept jumping a little more every time."

Sounds like Trevor, Susan thought, tuning out Mackenzie's voice. I wonder where he is. If Neville's safe. If we'll have a family as beautiful as the Warcastles. The moment he gets back here were starting one, married or not...

"That's the last of them." Susan healed Michael's wounds and ruffled his hair. "Quite an upper lip, if I do say so myself."

Michael grinned. He was missing both his front teeth. "Papa theth that ith what all gentlemen thould have."

The elder Warcastle gentleman let out a guffaw and set his daughter on the floor. "Thank you very much, Healer"--he looked at her badge--"Bones." He stood up, gathering the children close.

Susan looked over his shoulder at the clock. Eight fifty-eight. Where had the time gone? She hurriedly jotted a few last words on the thick packet of paperwork. "These papers will need to go to the reception desk, completed and signed. And you'll want to bring the children back in a week so we can be sure there aren't any leftover bits underneath the surface."

"Will you see them?"

She caught a whiff of his aftershave and felt immediately guilty when her heartbeat quickened. Neville has nice eyes too, remember. "That all depends. I can't say for certain. I'm very sorry, I have to dash. Perhaps I can just owl your wife with a reminder?"

Warcastle and the children grew quiet. "That won't be necessary. Thank you again, Healer Bones." Taking a child in each hand, he crossed the hall to the Floo hub.

Susan dithered for a second. Go after them and tell them that their underthings are showing, or meet Smethwyck? The folder in her hand began to cuckooing like her least favorite kind of clock, making the decision for her. She looked at the ceiling. There was no way she could make it there in time, no matter how fast she ran, but Apparating through the wards was going to be tricky....

Crack! Susan sprinted past the tearoom and hospital shop. She skidded to a halt just inside the doors which read 'Hippocrates Smethwyck, Chief of Staff' as the minute hand on her watch slid over to read three past the hour.

Smethwyck's secretary, a white-haired witch who wore tinted glasses on a gold chain, robes with fluffy bows that tied at the neck, and too much rouge, scribbled away determinedly at her correspondence. Apparently, she did not hear Susan's file, which grew noisier by the second. Finally, she peered over her glasses. "Do you have an appointment to see the chief of staff?"

Susan held up her folder. "Will this do?" She gave the secretary her sweetest smile.

The secretary gave her a dubious look. "It is generally expected that you will arrive before your folder goes off. The chief's time is quite valuable." She pulled a book across the blotter, running one finger down the page. "Susan Bones, nine o'clock. It appears to be--let me see--five after. Let me see if the chief will still consent to see you."

Turning to a brightly plumed bird on a stand behind her, the secretary raised her voice. "Susan Bones here to see you, sir."

The parrot flew through the inner door, which had been left ajar. Susan heard it repeat the secretary's message with a squawk, then Smethwyck's oily response: "Send her in, please."

The bird returned. "Send her in, please, bwaaaak, send her in, please, cracker?"

"You may go in now, Miss Bones." The secretary returned to her work with a dismissive wave.

Susan walked across the deep pile carpet, biting the insides of her cheeks. If she wasn't careful, she'd say what she really thought, and then where would she be? Out on the street without a decent reference. Out on the street without six months experience in any special area. Out on the street without Neville.

She reached for the brass doorknob and took a deep breath. I should have known this was coming. Every five months, like clockwork. I was so worried about Neville, I forgot about it entirely.

"Bwaaaaaak, what are you waiting for? Fashionably late, fashionably late, he'll have your head on a plate."

Susan glared at the parrot and walked into Smethwyck's office, closing the door tightly behind her. Whatever was said in here would be between the two of them. No need for nosy secretaries, or nosy parrots, to hear a word of it.

The chief of staff bent close over his notes, and did not look up as she entered. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but Smethwyck scared her. He was over six feet tall and skeletally thin. Something in his deliberate movements always made her think of spiders. He was completely bald and his spectacles reflected any light, so that she could never quite see his eyes.

"Please be seated."

Susan lowered herself carefully into one of the chairs opposite Smethwyck's desk. It wouldn't do for her to collapse into the chair like she wanted to. If she looked weak, then her arguments would be weak.

"Your folder please."

Smethwyck paged through the contents, his thin eyebrows raised over the tops of his lenses. When he got to the pages that Susan knew would be at the end, the pages where she should have detailed her accomplishments and successes with Creature-Induced Injuries patients, he very deliberately dropped them, one by one, into the bin beside his desk.

"I believe that it is time we discussed your future at St. Mungo's, Susan."


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Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling and various publishers. No money is being made and no trademark or copyright infringement is intended. No snails were harmed in the making of this chapter.