ANGELUS SOL SOLIS
Chapter Four: Compassionate Men
The young mediwizard attached various saline drips and potions onto the body of the newest hospital patient. He had sandy colored hair that swept over his forehead, and his brown eyes looked perceptively into everything that he attended. He glanced suspiciously at the young teenager who sat silently by the bedside of the new arrival.
Posh robes, clean shoes, snarky air. The mediwizard knew instanteously that this wizard was the rich sort. Additionally, the haughty look that the teen maintained pointed to the obvious – that he was some pompous, snobbish palace brat. He had the looks for it too: a pale and pointed face, startling blue-gray eyes, and white-blond hair. If the supervisor had not informed him of this young man's circumstances, oh boy, the mediwizard sure would have kicked him right out of the ward by now.
The girl on the bed looked drained. The mass of ringlets had been saturated with sweat when she had been transported into the hospital. Her body temperature had been well over 40 degrees Celsius. The attending diagnostician had thought it unlikely that the girl would survive, given the high temperature. Yet although her burning body hinted at something, some illness, nothing was wrong. Medical tests had been run three times each to eliminate the most likely suspects for her illness. No meningitis, no hepatitis, no pneumonia, or bronchitis, no cancer, no leukemia. Nothing. The high fever indicated that her body was fighting off some kind of infection, the diagnostician had suggested that it would either be bacterial or viral. Well, thought the mediwizard, scoffing inwardly, anyone who had been to medical school could make that diagnosis. The diagnostician had thus prescribed some treatments to cover the patient in case it turned out to be one of the most common bacterial or viral infections, and these were the treatments that the mediwizard was attaching to the patient now.
"What's wrong with her?" asked the boy quietly, interrupting the meditations that the mediwizard was making. He finished attaching the last potion drip to the arm of the sleeping patient, deliberately delaying the answer. Although he was on the diagnostic team, he himself was unsure of the problems that this girl had.
The mediwizard sighed deeply. He looked into the defiant eyes of the teenager, and saw resentment, as well as a deep compassion for the patient.
"I'm not going to lie to you. Our team of doctors and mediwizards… well, we don't actually know what's going on yet. One of the best doctors in the business, Dr Hannigan, is helping us figure a theory to explain your friend's symptoms."
"She's not my friend," Draco shot back quickly, scowling like he had scalded himself.
The mediwizard looked at him, slightly confused by what the boy had just said. If the boy wasn't her friend, then why the hell had he been hanging around the hospital ever since the girl had been admitted?
"We've been enemies since we were eleven," added Draco confidently.
"Right," said the mediwizard, rolling his eyes as he turned around, "that's why you've been looking so worried."
Draco glared at him angrily. The Australian accent of the mediwizard amused him, even though he did not show it. Australian accents had always been particularly amusing for Draco especially since the family had returned from a vacation down under a couple of years back, where he had visited the Great Reef and the Sydney Opera House, amongst other things.
Draco knew that the mediwizard thought that his behavior was queer. Admittedly, this was the case. He had just blurted that he was not a friend or even an acquaintance of Granger, and yet, as the mediwizard had observed correctly, Draco was here, waiting quietly by her bedside.
He would rather have died than be caught by anyone holding Granger's impure hand, even anyone that did not know him for what he truly was. Or even, if anyone knew what Granger truly was, for that matter. He was rather glad that she was unconscious to the fact that he had clasped his hands around hers every night so far. He kept reminding himself that she had saved him from being murdered by that maniac Tuckley, after all.
Draco quickly brushed aside his feelings of empathy, as he thought bitterly of how she would soon return to her friends. She would never accept him, not after what he had done after all those years. If she did become his friend, her return to Saint Potter would force her to break ties with him anyway. Draco therefore did not see the point of keeping his hopes up. A dark cloud passed over his face as he thought about how he would be surrounded by a wide sea of loneliness, whilst she had the close comforts of loving friends.
- - + ---
Dumbledore walked quickly to the small inn that had opened in Diagon Alley. He sat down on a grimy table in the back of the room, where a small figure wearing a fine emerald robe sat. The figure was hooded, but he recognised the gleaming eyes within the darkness that concealed the face.
"We have decided that we will entrust his life to you," said the voice within quietly. "He will not like it, but it is for the best."
Dumbledore nodded gravely.
"Have you any intention of discussing it with him?"
"We will… in our own way."
Dumbledore sipped pensively on his mug of Butterbeer. "You have heard the news, and of what Moody has planned?"
"The news is terrible. Yet striking."
Dumbledore nodded, glancing briefly around to check for unwanted listeners. He doubted that anyone would be able to decrypt the conversation anyway. It was pretty bland and uninformative to those who had no inclination of what was being discussed. Besides, they were talking in a particularly guarded manner.
"It is not good, which is why we are glad that the school will be opening soon."
There was a small beeping noise as a scrap of parchment materialised in front of Dumbledore's nose. Reading it hurriedly, he took out a few coins to pay for his Butterbeer, and said, "I must attend to urgent matters. Take care."
Thanks to the following reviewers:
samhaincat
Annie Mara
Fain Oakenbringer
Elena Bauder
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