Spell Checked! Aren't you all glad?
Wrongful Imprisonment: By Thoughts and Pondering
That's the Way the World is Now.
Chapter Six: The Healer's Strike
"Lumos," Tonks muttered, her wand held aloft. A narrow beam errupted from the end. She circled the room, careful not to trip over her own feet. After going around the room three times, she voiced her most likely thought. "Remus, Harry," she whispered, "There's no-one here."
Remus looked around the room, his eyes glinting in the darkness. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Or lack thereof.
"Maybe he's just been moved to another room or something," Harry suggested.
Tonks nodded absent mindedly and they walked back out into the corridor. The candles in the corridor were burning low. There was more light in the hall then in the ward but Healers would never let candles burn that low...they always re-lit them after twelve hours...the charm was meant to last sixteen. The dim light made spooky shadows jump all the way down the deserted hall.
"Let's go down to the waiting area and ask questions there," Remus said. "Maybe they'll know what happened." Tonks nodded her assent.
"It was a stupid idea to take the Portkey anyway," she muttered under her breath.
They walked quickly down all the way to the bottom. Remus could not help but notice that all the halls they passed were as deserted as the one they just left. When they made their way back down to the waiting area, they found out where every one was.
Unlike the halls they had passed, this room was brightly lit. It looked like a riot was taking place. There was shouting and screaming going on. Some of the Healers had picket signs, some of them had written letters in the air. In various different colours, Remus read similar things' 'Workers Rights!' 'Give up the Galleons!' and one that declared, 'WAGES TOO SMALL!' The Healers that weren't shouting and waving were tending to the patients, occasionally stopping their work to look at their colleagues with disgust. The patients had been pushed next to the wall on makeshift beds. Blocking their view of the whole fiasco was the back of a heavy-set Ministry official.
Remus identified James on the other side of the room. He caught his eyes and smiled. Next to him were Amyller and Fiona, both of them were looking at the striking Healers with open disgust. Patrolling around the picketing Healers were some Ministry officials wearing the official purple robes of on-duty workers in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He didn't see Dolores Umbridge. The worker strike at St. Mungo's obviously wasn't important enough to warrant her attention.
"IF YOU REALLY CARED ABOUT THE PATIENTS YOU WOULDN'T BE JEPORADISING THEIR HEALTH BY--" shouted one of the Healers on the sidelines yelled at the top of her voice, breaking into Remus's thoughts.
"WE CARE!" was all that was yelled back a striking Healer.
"Tonks," Remus whispered, "Why is everyone squashed together in here?"
"When a strike takes place, like now," Tonks explained, pointing to the crowd of Healers, "the Ministry push everyone in the same room so they can get it under control." She sat down on the spot. There was no use trying to go past the Ministry official, and he wouldn't notice them unless they spoke to loudly. His gaze was too firmly fixed on the mess in front of him, and his thoughts were fixated on his job, which was not to let anyone vacate the premises until the mess was sorted out.
"How'd you know?" Remus asked curiously. "Has it happened before?"
Tonks looked at Remus open-mouthed.
"You mean you didn't know about Millicent Bagnold's assassination?" she asked, her blue-grey eyes growing wide.
"I heard. The whole Wizarding world knew that she was murdered." Remus sat down next to her and Harry sat down as well.
"Millicent Bagnold? Wasn't she the Minister for Magic before Fudge?" Harry asked. Remus nodded.
"Only the people there knew what really happened. But I'm not sure if anyone was there...the paper didn't say where she was at the time." Remus put his head in his hands. "It was two months before Voldemort's downfall. It was horrible."
"I was there." Tonks looked up at Remus and he saw her face. There was no sign of the klutzy, easy going Tonks. This was a different Tonks. This Tonks looked mature. "Mum used to work at the Ministry, for the Department of Magical Sports. Most of the areas of the Ministry were going on strike that day; I think they were angry because the Ministry had taken away their lunch breaks. Anyway, Mum took me along, since Dad was going to a friend's wedding. I think I was eight, and I was in a bad mood, because I had tried to convince Mum I was mature enough to stay home by myself, but she dragged me along anyway. Probably something to do with the time I fed her Crup a burnt plastic fork. Anyway, it was about three hours into the strike when the Death Eaters attacked. You know what happened. 'Bout a third of the room didn't get out without serious injury."
"What about you?" Remus asked; glad to finally know the truth about what happened that day.
"What about me? I was too short to be hit by any of the spells thrown."
"It's really quiet, isn't it?" Harry observed.
Remus and Tonks stopped and listened. "The shouting's stopped." They both stated at exactly the same time.
"And that Ministry official's no longer blocking our way," Harry pointed out.
They nodded at each other and walked down into the main waiting area. An aged old Healer was shaking hands with a purple robed Auror. "Sonorus," the Auror mumbled, pointing his wand down his throat. He climbed atop one of the battered beige chairs in the waiting room and announced, "The Healer salary has been brought up from eight sickles and seven knuts an hour to ten sickles and a knut an hour." Another of the Ministry officials scrawled his words down on a piece of parchment and handed it to his superior.
The picketing Healers cheered. That was a huge monetary increase for many of them. The Healers on the sides merely shrugged. The official which had read the announcement nodded to his colleagues and after he waved his wand around and muttered a few words, they Apparated out.
Fiona waved at them and gestured for them to come over. They crossed the width of the room quickly." I saw you over there," she said as she tucked a few loose strands of brown hair back into her hairnet. "James is ready to go home with you now, wherever home is for you. Here," she dropped a heavy roll of parchment into Remus's hands, "are some care instructions for James."
Remus did a quick scan of the list. "Merlin's Beard!" he gasped. "This is like taking care of a small child! No offence, James." He rolled the parchment up and put into the pocket of his robes. Tonks nodded, as she read it over his shoulder.
James merely grinned. "At least I'm toilet trained." He sat upright on the edge of the bed. Tonks, Remus, Harry and Fiona laughed.
Fiona nodded behind James's shoulder. "You'll have to take him back here once a week so we can mark his progress. He should be walking without support within a fortnight at the most. We have a wheelchair to take him home in, but it's upstairs.
Amyller walked quietly over. He looked a bit hassled. His medium length brown beard looked a bit wild, Remus wouldn't be a bit surprised if there were some mice living in it. As long as there weren't any rats... "I'll get it," Amyller suggested. "I want to get out of this room, it's awfully stuffy. He pulled the sleeve of his white Healer robe to the end of his hand, covering it. He mopped his sweaty brow and left.
Fiona sat down on the edge of the bed, taking caution not to crease the sheets. "The pay rise isn't that important," she stated, looking at her fellow Healers. "Not to me anyway."
"Why were only half the Healers on strike?" Harry asked, as he sat down on his father's other side. James smiled at his son, and ruffled Harry's hair. Harry did nothing to stop this.
Fiona sighed loudly. "I didn't see the point. What would I spend it on? I admit, it would have been useful ten years back...but now most of my life revolves around my work."
"Why ten years ago?" Tonks asked curiously.
Fiona merely shook her head, indicating she didn't want to talk about it. Amyller returned with the wheelchair. He grasped one of James's hands and Fiona took the other and together they helped James into the chair. James didn't look very happy at this; Remus knew the quicker James could walk, the better. James didn't like being helped along like a cripple. Remus wondered why Azkaban hadn't affected Sirius as much as it had James. Sirius seemed fine. Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe this was all a test...thrown down to them by some unknown force. He couldn't help but think this shouldn't have happened...that something in some controlling force's plans had gone wrong. But another of his best friends was back, and they were back from the same place. If he really thought about it, all of them had been isolated and alone for at least twelve years.
Maybe they could heal each other.
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Thanks for reading, and please review, responses for last chapter and this chapter up tomorrow. Finally.
Thanks and til next time.
Thoughts and Pondering.