Hey all my happy readers! Well in some of the latest reviews there some thing I needed to correct so if you have some questions read the shout outs and maybe it'll answer some of them. There is also a minor confusion I would like to sort out. There is only going to be 15 chapters and an epilogue. Sorry if you're disappointed. New readers!
phoenixfeathersong004: Sorry about spelling Weasley wrong. I'll be sure to do spell it correctly for the next chapter.
person place or thing: Sorry about the healer thing but I just like writing doctor better because its just more natural to me if I wrote it. I sometimes call them healers though.
jen: Yeah new reader! Thanks for the review and I will keep going!
Eruaphadriel: Thanks for the review and I would just like to say HURRY UP AND UPDATE YOUR STORY! That was also one of my favourite chapters.
kit: Thanks for the review and I'll try to make this chapter just as long but there is no guarantees. I would also like to thank you for being my top reviewer!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter so you can not sue me.
Chapter 11- Searching for Answers
Alicia awoke in the hotel room the following morning with no desire to get up. She checked the clock and saw it was twelve o'clock already. Groaning she lay in bed and let her thoughts wander freely.
'You're still in Egypt. Isn't there something you can do for Fred while you're here?'
'No, there is nothing to do so I might as well stay in my room the whole day and pack.'
'That's not a good attitude. You should be positive. How do you expect to have the slightest chance of curing Fred if you don't get out of bed?'
'That's the point. Do you think wandering the streets will help Fred?'
'Isn't there someone else in Egypt you can ask? I'm sure something will turn up if you just try.'
'Yeah, you're right. Why don't I just clap my heels together and say there's no place like home?'
'You're pathetic, you know that?'
'Yah, I've been trying to get that across but you were just too stupid to figure it out.'
'That's it get out of bed! I'm part of your mind too so get up!'
'There's no place like home, there's no place like home.'
'Shut up! I'm half of your brain and I say shut up and get up!'
'Too bad you're not the part that thinks logically.'
'Get up now or you won't think at all!'
'What are you going to do? Kill the other half of your brain?'
'That sounds like a good idea.'
'Bring it on!'
Now Alicia's brain was starting to hurt. "Shut up both of you!" she yelled at her arguing thoughts. "I'm getting up already!" So she got out of bed and went to shower and brush her teeth.
Sitting at the table in her hotel room she looked over the map that she had gotten at the Portkey store. She had listened to the positive part of her brain and decided to look into some hospitals and maybe she could find something helpful. Using a quill and some black ink she transfigured in to red she circled every hospital within the city of Cairo. She found five.
The first one was located on the west side of town and looked like a small shack painted white. Alicia looked disappointed seeing as it was hard getting there and it was pretty clear she wasn't going to find the most qualified of doctors there. Since she hadn't seen the hospital before she couldn't apparate and flying was out of the question since she didn't bring a broom. Taking a Portkey would have been too expensive. So she had walked. She had walked from the Waldorf in the east side of town to the other side for a crappy hospital.
"Damn it," she cursed and walked through the squeaky doors.
The reception was equivalent to the Leaky Cauldron in the early morning. A few stray people not in the greatest shape with eye patches and a middle aged man looking bored behind the counter. It was also as clean as any bar. Garbage littered the floors and underneath chairs were wads of gum. The paint was peeling off the walls and flies were buzzing around the light.
"Can I help you?" asked the man behind the counter in tone that was trying to be polite. He looked at her up and down and tried showing a friendly smile but it looked more like a creepy grin.
"Uh, is there a Junior Healer that has a couple of, uh, minutes?" The way he was looked at her was making her nervous. His gaze didn't seem directed at her face though so she crossed her arms across her chest.
After her arms blocked what he was staring at he focused back on her face. "Uh sorry, what were you saying?"
"Are there any Junior Healers at this, um, hospital?" Alicia asked trying to keep her tone polite. She was still having trouble calling the shack a hospital.
"You'll have to wait a while, miss. Our Junior Healer is currently performing surgery." Just after he said that she heard an ear-splitting scream.
"What the hell was that?" Alicia asked covering her ears in case it came again.
"We ran out of potion to freeze his body for the surgery so we had to do without." He smiled again and went back to his work writing down things on a piece of parchment. After seeing her stand there with a face of shock still plastered on her face he smirked and asked, "What are you doing tonight?"
Alicia looked back at him horrified. "No way in hell!" she spat and went to sit in the only clean and unbroken chair but it creaked under her weight as if it would collapse.
Alicia sat there wondering how long it would be. She felt many eyes on her and was nervous to get up and look for a magazine or something. Maybe they're looking at me because I'm the only thing here that's bathed in the last month she thought and sat there playing with her thumbs.
"Well that was tough," said a women walking out with blood splattered all over her robes. She muttered a spell and the blood faded a bit but specks of brown still remained. "What's next?" she asked the man behind the counter.
"That lady over there requests a couple of minutes," the man spoke pointing in Alicia's direction.
Alicia got up and walked toward the Junior Healer. "You can join me in my office," she said and walked on and Alicia assumed she should follow her. In her office there was a wobbly old table made of poorly cut and uneven planks of wood and the chair behind it looked like it was made by the same person.
"Hello, I'm Marie Allworth," she said and stuck out her hand for Alicia to shake. Alicia reached for it but realized on her hand was a glove stained with wet blood that Marie had not bothered to clean. Noticing Alicia's hesitation she took off her glove to reveal a hand that was bony and pale but at least clean. Alicia shook it and took a minute to see what Ms. Allworth looked like. Her hair was clearly blond but since it had not been washed or combed for what looked like months it was dirt brown. She seemed young, not older than forty, but her skin was pale and wrinkly for a woman her age.
"Hello, I'm Alicia Spinnet and I come from St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries in England-"
"Oh England, delightful place it is. I actually studied in England in a school called Hogwarts. I was in Ravenclaw but I didn't seem as bright as my house. Don't know why but at least I was known as being in the smart house." Marie smiled and Alicia was reminded off Professor Trelawney in a strange way.
"That is quite interesting but I'm here to ask for advice about one of my patients in the hospital I work at. You see-"
"Advice! My dear child, you have come to the right person. Just a couple of months ago Susan Right, a friend from Ravenclaw, came for advice about her sick cousin. When I asked her why me she said I was a great healer and after giving her a cure her cousin's as fit as a fiddle. Great, isn't it?" Alicia didn't like being interrupted but she knew she wasn't getting anywhere quickly.
"M'ame," Alicia said trying to be patient. "The patient I am referring to was caught in a fire and inhaled much toxic smoke-"
"Fires! Always in the way and you're just caught up the whole night trying to cure people who don't even care about what you've got planned for the night. So inconsiderate…" Now Alicia was very fed up.
"Ms. Allworth please stop interrupting!"
"Dear child, there's no need to yell. So what were you talking about England?"
"You know what Ms. Allworth?" Alicia asked while getting up, "I really need to go but it was nice meeting you." Alicia quickly got up and rushed out the door. Slamming the door behind her some people in the reception turned to look at the source of the noise. She smiled innocently and walked through the room calmly but sprinted to the door once three quarters of the way there.
The map Alicia had was separated into two parts. The first part was of the magical village that Alicia was in and it was not accessible by muggles. The other part was of hidden magical buildings in the muggle town next to it. The second hospital was hidden in the muggle town much like St. Mungo's. The question was how would you get there?
Alicia walked through the town square and went into the quill shop to ask for directions. "Hello," she said to get the cashier's attention. "Do you know how to get here?" She put the map on the table and pointed to the hospital.
The cashier started talking Egyptian very quickly and the few words that Alicia knew did not help her at all. "Excuse me?" Alicia asked interrupting that cashier mid-sentence.
"You English? Me nono, me nono," said the cashier gesturing with her hands that she didn't know English.
Alicia walked back out on to the streets and started asking random people on the streets. None of them seemed to know English though. Finally someone came by and said that the entrance to the muggle town was through the back of the café Alicia had eaten in yesterday.
Now she was standing in front of a building with a big sign that said "Snake Oil". Walking up the steps to the door there was a sign that said closed and it was locked. This was a clever trick. To unlock the door you needed to do magic. "Alohomora!" Alicia said quietly with her wand in her coat. The door clicked open and Alicia entered.
The hospital looked much like the ones in England and except it wasn't as crowded. Alicia assumed that most of Cairo's magical population went to Pomfrey Hospital. The line up at the receptionist wasn't very long so she was at the front in about five minutes.
"How can me help yo?" asked the receptionist.
"May I speak to a Junior Healer?" asked Alicia.
"Of course," she answered and wrote something down on a piece of parchment. Then she charmed it and it flew across the room and down the corridor. "Go to rum A27," she instructed.
Alicia walked down the hall until she reached room A27and knocked. "Come in," squeaked the man that was inside.
She turned the knob and entered a stuffy little office with papers and books everywhere. The floor was littered with crunched up pieces of parchment and books askew. On the knobby little man's desk it was covered with parchment everywhere and Alicia even spotted a quill still wet with ink dripping over a couple of documents. The man himself was about a head shorter than Alicia with thick horn rimmed glasses sitting lowly on his nose.
"Hi there, my name is Alicia Spinnet and I'm come from St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries."
"Hello, my name is Phillip Banks," he greeted and took out his hand for her to shake. To Alicia's relief it was clean unlike Marie Allworth's hand.
"Um, there's a patient we are unsure of how to cure and I'm here for advice. You see he suffered through a fire and inhaled magic filled smoke." Alicia paused to see if he would say or do something.
"Go on," was all Phillip said in a squeaky voice.
"He's endured many cleansing surgeries but he won't awake from his coma. I was wondering if you had a cure." She wondered if she sounded smart. She once read from a book that said if you sounded smart and sophisticated you were more likely to get answers.
"I read about this somewhere. You see I studied in America and I was sure my professor said something about this. I'm sure there's something in one of these books…" he trailed off for he had reached for the nearest book and started flipping through the pages.
Alicia looked around the room and saw the floor held more books than the messy shelves. She didn't know if they were supposed to search all of them or something.
"No, it's not in this one," he said frustrated and threw the book aside and picked up another one from the ground. He started flipping through it again but his expression showed he was no where near finding it. "If you don't mind, we can get this done faster if you try looking down the index of some of these books," Phillip requested.
Nodding she walked over to the bookshelf and picked up the nearest book that was especially thick. The title was, "A Healer's Guide" so she flipped to the back and read down the index. She saw the word 'cure' and flipped to the page 672 where the index indicated it would be. She squinted at the miniscule writing and wondered if Phillip had read this book before. Using a charm was no better for the book was full of complicated terms and medicines that Alicia had not even heard of. Closing it she put it back neatly on the shelf and reached for another one.
Two hours later Phillip or Alicia had not found a single thing. The rest of the books on the shelf were no better at giving information than, "A Healer's Guide". Frustrated she put back the 20th book she had looked through and turned around to face Phillip. "Mr. Banks, have you found anything yet?" Alicia asked frustrated. It seemed Phillip had fallen asleep on his desk and awoke with a start at Alicia's voice.
"I found something interesting in this book," he said picking up the book that lay open beside him. "The mandrake plant is a useful plant but the origin is uncertain…" He trailed off for he was flipping through the book trying to answer Alicia's question.
"Mr. Banks it has been a pleasure looking through these, uh, informative books but I really must go," Alicia said while shaking his hand good-bye. She wanted to add, "Because you're an incompetent bookworm," but she left before she could do anything rash.
When Alicia exited the hospital it was already five o'clock. Since all the hospitals were about an hour away from each other she was sure that she would incapable of visiting the rest of them. "Two more and I'm going back to the hotel," she agreed to herself.
The third hospital was a total waste of another two hours. It was packed with tons of other witches and wizards. It's probably because it's not covered with muck and incompetent Junior Healers she thought while in the waiting room. She had gone up and asked to meet with a Junior Healer and was promised a five minute wait. After an hour she had gone up and asked how much longer and the receptionist again reassured her it'd be five minutes. The third time she got up and demanded she see a Junior Healer. Since receptionist was fed up with her complaining she recommended Jordan's Hospital on the east outskirts of town.
Alicia looked on to her map and realized it was not there so the receptionist told her she could use the hospital's Floo Network. After the dizzy feeling she always got after using the Floo Network she appeared in the empty reception of Jordan's Hospital. It was very small and looked more like a small doctor's clinic and Alicia could tell it was not a very busy place.
"Lee, I think that's all the patients we have for today," said a sweet female voice that sounded awfully familiar. After that a very pretty and perfectly tanned women with shoulder length blonde hair stepped into the reception.
"Katie!" Alicia squealed knowing that it was her friend Katie Bell or Katie Jordan. Katie was Alicia's friend who left with her husband Lee to travel the world a little over a year ago but never returned.
"Oh my God! Lee get the hell out here!" she bellowed to a door. "Alicia, is that really you?"
"Yep, it is," Alicia said holding back tears. Then she couldn't stand it any longer and went to hug her friend. "You have some explaining to do," she said pulling away from the hug.
"Katie hun, what it is?" Lee asked emerging from the door Katie had screamed at earlier. He looked like he did before he left except he was more tanned and his dreadlocks were cut short. "Alicia, is that you?"
Alicia didn't answer but hugged him instead and nodded into his shoulder. "You guys better explain why the hell you're here and not home with us!" she said wiping the tears back.
Ten minutes later and they still hadn't answered her question yet but led her to the back of the hospital to where they lived. Now Alicia was being force-fed Katie's spaghetti that was not as good as Angelina's but was still pretty good. When she had finished she said, "A lot has happened since you've been gone."
"Did we miss Fred and Angelina's wedding. I'd die if I did," said Katie smiling. Lee nodded in agreement.
"Something happened that you might not have known about," Alicia explained vaguely looking down at her empty plate.
"Did something happen to Fred or Angelina? Did they break up?" Lee asked.
"Please tell me they didn't! They made the best couple," Katie whined.
"I don't know if they broke up. I left before Angelina told me if she was going to do it or not," Alicia answered looking up momentarily.
"What do you mean?" asked Katie looking at intently at Alicia's tilted head.
Alicia sighed and looked up at the awaiting eyes of Katie and Lee. "The day after you guys left the joke shop caught on fire and well…"
"Well what? Did something happen to Fred or George?" Lee asked aggressively.
"Fred was in the midst of everything and he had to, um, he kinda, um, fainted cause, well, he inhaled smoke cause the things burned and stuff." Alicia never felt comfortable describing the experience. Even now she was close to tears as they burned her eyes but refused to wipe at them.
"So how's Fred now?" asked a confused Katie.
"He had to go through surgery and-and we don't know why but-but he's still in a coma and stuff," Alicia stuttered. She always stuttered when she was crying.
She looked up and again and Katie saw her glossy eyes. "What-"Lee started asking but was cut off when Katie kicked him under the table. Lee looked at her with a bewildered expression as Katie mouthed, "She doesn't want to talk about it you idiot." He nodded as a sign of understanding as Katie patted Alicia softly and said, "Hun, we'll talk about this later. How about I make some tea and Lee can go to your hotel and get your bags so you can stay here tonight?"
Alicia nodded and wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. She didn't feel like crying anymore. "I'm going back home t-tomorrow."
"That's okay. We'll talk about this later but only after you've finished your tea and calmed down a bit," Katie soothed as she charmed the mess away from the dishes.
Later that same night Alicia, Katie, and Lee were all sitting in the living room with cups of tea in their hand. "I think I've explained enough tonight. Tell me, why are you guys here?" Alicia asked sipping her second cup of tea.
"Well as expected Katie and I traveled all over Europe and Asia and we thought we'd tackle Africa before the Americas. We were so excited about seeing Egypt though we decided to come here first. When we saw all the sights we were just amazed-"Lee was cut off again because Katie wanted to talk. Katie liked to explain things so it wasn't very uncommon that she cut Lee off.
"Anyways whenever we go to another country we stop and help the poorer people. It's kinda a tradition. Well we go to the poorer regions of Cairo and see there's more poverty here then any other country. So Lee and I decided to buckle down and move to Egypt and offer low price health care here. That's why Jordan's Hospital is here," Katie concluded. I explain things so much better than Lee she thought.
"Why didn't you at least write or tell us that you were moving here? We haven't spoken in over months cause you wouldn't answer our letters," blamed Alicia.
"Well we didn't answer your letters because we knew you wouldn't approve and we couldn't do something you didn't want us to do. And we couldn't lie to you…" Katie said.
"Oh," was all Alicia could say. "Can I at least tell George and Angelina about you guys?"
"Of course," answered Lee.
"Whatever happened to George?" asked Katie.
"He brought Fred to the hospital after the incident and now he lives with me."
"Why are you here anyways?" asked Lee.
"Maybe you could help me; I'm here to help cure Fred. You see during the, um, fire he inhaled a lot of smoke that was, um, intoxicated with the magic of their products and he had surgery to clean his body but he won't wake up from his coma. Do you have like a cure or something…?"
"I've never heard of something like this happening." Alicia knew Katie was thinking but instead looked like she had a toothache.
"I have a couple of books we can look through," Lee suggested while getting up and heading upstairs. Moments later he returned with about fifteen books and Alicia flinched as she saw the book "A Healer's Guide". "These are the books that are most focused on different cures. He picked up the nearest book and started flipping through it like Phillip Banks had done.
Katie followed suite so Alicia sighed and picked up a book too. "What's this?" Alicia asked as she picked up the book underneath it. It looked old and as Alicia flipped through it realized it was a notebook someone had written in rather than a published book.
"I don't know what that is. An old lady gave it to me after her surgery. She died the day after though. I can't even read it though, there's gibberish written all over it," Lee explained.
Alicia looked it over and wiped off some dust and found it was not gibberish written on the cover but ancient runes. Obviously Lee and Katie could not read it for they never studied ancient runes. On the front it read 'diary'. On the bottom Alicia read a very rushed name but could make out 'Poppy Pomfrey' beside a huge scribble. This was the diary of Poppy Pomfrey, the book she held in her hand was the diary of Poppy Pomfrey.
Alicia sat there and flipped through the book and read the occasional interesting tid-bit from her days in Hogwarts. Then Alicia found a very fascinating entry. It read:
Dear Diary,
My dreams of becoming a great healer are increasing by the day. I am studying hard in my courses in hopes of securing some sort of job. I've always wanted to be a healer in Hogwarts for that would be a nice job. I even got to help a fellow classmate today.
Harold Zonko, a boy who loved inventing things to cause trouble, was a horrible mess today. You see he was up in his dorm creating whatever when he caused a fire. When the fire was discovered and extinguished Harold had fainted. It seemed that he had inhaled smoke that was intoxicated with magic and had come off his inventions when burnt.
The healer at school had no idea what to do but I did. I invent potions myself did you know that? Well if I'm going to be a great healer I have to learn these things. The following potion is an intense one that cleanses the body of magic that travels through the blood stream at such a rate that in can not be eliminated by surgery.
Then it listed a recipe for a potion Alicia had never heard of. Conjuring up some parchment, ink, and quill she copied it exactly like it did in the diary. Then she yelled out, "I found it! There's a potion here for the exact same thing that Fred has!"
"Where'd you find it?" wondered Lee.
"It's in this book! This is actually Madame Pomfrey's diary except it's written in ancient runes. Look I'll read it out loud to you…" Then she read out the diary entry to her two friends.
"Wow," was all Katie said.
"How'd that old lady get such a book?" Lee asked.
"I don't know. Let me check the last entry maybe that'll explain it." Alicia flipped to the back of the old book.
Dear Diary,
I have just gotten my first job and it's at Hogwarts! I now realize though that you're full and there are no more pages to write in you so I'm going to give you to my mother. I want to donate you to a hospital but there is none I think is worthy of you. So I'm going to give you to my mother and she promised when she found a hospital that is worthy she would give you to it. Good-bye.
Poppy Hubble
"What in the world? Why does it say Poppy Hubble?" Katie asked after Alicia read it out loud.
"Wait there's more at the bottom," Alicia said. It looked a lot more rushed.
Dear Diary,
I hate father! He just came back today because as an Auror he has to travel a lot and look for dark wizards. I hadn't even told him about my job yet or that I want to be a healer. When I told him today though he freaked out! He said he wanted me to be an Auror and fight like him. Now he will not let me leave for Hogwarts tomorrow! So I'm sneaking out tonight and I'm going to leave you with my mother. If she ever reads this tell her that I have changed my surname for I no longer like fathers.
Poppy Pomfrey
"I never knew Madame Pomfrey had such a past," said Katie.
"I can't believe her mother gave her diary to us out of all the other hospitals," stated Lee.
"Her father must regret not letting her be a healer now. I mean look at her!" Alicia said.
Then they cleaned up the books on the floor and went to bed.
Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out but it's pretty long. Well this story is starting to end and I don't know what kind of story I want to do next. I don't even know if I want to do t on Harry Potter again! So I've started a poll and vote if there's a particular couple you like.
What couple should I write about in my next fan fiction?
Ginny and Neville
Harry and Luna
Tonks and Lupin
Lee and Katie (A whole new story line and not a Lee and Katie POV of this story.)
George and Alicia again