Chapter Six

The Ghost Portrait

Thankfully, we made it to see the sun the next morning, and I was not surprised to see that no one was in the lobby, or awake for that matter, as Weasley and I prepared to Floo our way to St. Mungo's. Last night's misadventure had not helped Weasley's condition, and I was silently praying that Flooing would not make it even worse, or kill him completely. I had shrunk the broom and my potions kit again and slipped them in my robe pocket so that I could concentrate fully on Weasley. I placed him in the fireplace and helped him stand upright.

"I will need you to try and remain lucid, Mr. Weasley," I told him, grabbing a handful of Floo powder from the table beside the fireplace. "Do you know what is happening?"

Weasley blinked and looked around. "We're flooing?"

"Correct. I need you to hold on to me very tightly, as though we were doing Side-Long Apparition," I explained as I stepped into the grate with him.

Weasley began to look very alarmed. "We're flooing together? Is that even possible?"

"We're about to find out," I said grimly. I felt Weasley's grip on me tighten; it was abnormally strong for someone in his condition. No doubt he was scared out of his wits. "I will count to three."

Weasley nodded.

"One... two...three. St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries!"

I threw the powder into the fireplace, hung onto Weasley with all my might, and felt the familiar spinning sensation as we were whisked away from Stoker's Den, hopefully to St. Mungo's, and Weasley's salvation.

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The Welcome Witch barely glanced at us as we shot out of the fireplace - me tumbling head over feet as I tried to maintain my grip on Weasley - and landed in a sooty heap almost directly in front of her desk.

"May I help you?" the plump, blond woman asked.

I got to my feet, dusted myself off with as much dignity as I could manage, and then pulled Weasley to his feet. He was coughing up soot and blood.

"What does it look like?" I asked her, scowling.

She looked up irritably, gave Weasley a once over, and said, "Magical Bugs, Second Floor."

I glared at the sign on her desk that displayed the same information.

"I could have told myself that. This is not something with which the Healer's are familiar with."

Now it was the witch's turn to glare. "And who might you be?"

"I am Severus Snape, Potion's Master of Hogwarts," I answered. "I have traveled here, from Romania, with the cargo of one Charlie Weasley, who has been infected with a new strain of Dragon Pox. I need to see a Healer immediately, and he should not be placed in any rooms with other patients, as the disease is most likely contagious. I have order's from Albus Dumbledore that I am to see to this boy's safety."

Weasley began to cough up more blood, and I was about to ring the woman's neck, when she said, "Head to the Second Floor and go to the Gorsemoor ward. I'll have someone meet you at the door."

"How obliging of you," I spat.

The Welcome Witch conjured Weasley a stretcher. I was surprised she spared the time to wave her wand. I laid Weasley down upon it and headed for the Second Floor. I arrived to find a young, blond healer in green robes waiting for me, looking anxious.

"Hello," she said, as I approached. "I'm Healer McKenzie. There's a room available in the Gorsemoor wing at the end of the hall. I'll make sure that it's quarantined, and that the necessary precautions are taken to prevent a widespread infection. You should probably be examined, too, Professor Snape."

Bloody hell. An American. And one that looked like she hadn't been out of Healer's training for more than a month.

"Are you the Healer that has been assigned to this case?" I asked, looking at her dubiously.

Her pale, blue eyes narrowed. "Yes. If you'll follow me, please." She pushed open the door that read "Dragon Pox, Gunhilda of Gorsemoor Wing". I glanced at the plaque on our way by that said the Senior Healer was Brooke McKenzie, and the Healer in Training was someone named Leigh Channel.

Weasley was taken to the last room at the end of the hall. It was a plain, white room with a bed, table, and one chair. Weasley was levitated out of the stretcher and onto the bed. Healer McKenzie took out her wand and took his temperature.

"The Welcome Witch told me that the patient's name is Charlie Weasley, right?" she asked, as a clipboard floating next to her took down the reading from McKenzie's wand.

"Correct," I answered, trying to glance at the clipboard.

"And that you brought him all the way here from Romania?"

I could hear a hint of disapproval in her voice, and I did not like it one bit. "Yes," I hissed.

The clipboard jotted down more notes.

"Has his family been informed?" McKenzie asked.

"No. Although, I am fairly certain that they already know. I am sure Dumbledore's keeping them at bay."

McKenzie blinked. "Excuse me? How could they know, if no one told them?"

I looked down my nose at her. "You are a witch, are you not? I'm sure that you're familiar with the way the magical world works, and that sometimes things just magically happen. Like magic."

She was now waving her wand over Weasley's body while the clipboard took even more notes. She paused long enough to tell me, "Maybe you should go tell Headmaster Dumbledore that you have arrived and let the Weasley family know that their son is in good hands."

"Perhaps I should," I answered. "However, I have dragged Weasley around for the better part of the week, and I would like to know how he is, what it is, exactly, that he is infected with, and whether my efforts have been in vain."

"I'll let you know. But for right now, you need to let Healer Channel examine you to make sure you have not been infected, too. I'm sure you wouldn't like to be placed in quarantine, Professor Snape."

Indeed. I nodded to McKenzie, and was lead out of the room by another young Healer - this one a brunette - who was waiting for me by the door.

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I was not infected, as it turned out. Something that bothered both McKenzie and Channel immensely because of the amount of time I spent with him.

"Have you had Dragon Pox before?" McKenzie asked me later that afternoon, after she and I were both back in Weasley's room.

"Thankfully, no," I told her.

"Strange. I hate to tell you this, Professor, but I have seen these symptoms before. A couple of farmers were attacked by a Welsh Green a few weeks ago and came down with this exact same thing. Their starting symptoms were a little different, but there was no mistake about what it was. Charlie Weasley definitely has it, too. We started treatment for Dragon Pox immediately, but we found that it only made it worse. Which is also strange, because it has all the exact symptoms of the original Dragon Pox, accept that they're accelerated." She glanced down at Weasley. "Charlie Weasley's infection also seems to be attacking his respiratory system."

"Hence his coughing up blood."

"Exactly. From what I can determine, the infection does deteriorate the body's defenses slowly, although much faster than normal Dragon Pox at the same time. Am I making sense?"

She didn't wait for an answer.

"Anyway, in the other patients, it attacked motor functions first, making them unable to walk or use their limbs properly. Healer Channel told me that you said Charlie Weasley and the other... Kozlov... had symptoms similar to the common cold or the flu?"

"He seemed tired, and then the respiratory infection started, along with seizures," I explained.

"So, it did affect motor functions at first?" she asked.

"He only experienced them once."

"What other symptoms has he had on your travels?"

"Mainly just the exhaustion, respiratory infection, and high fever. And, of course, the green tinge to his skin. He has not developed the pox on the skin, yet, however."

"And the seizures once."

"Yes."

McKenzie remained silent for a moment, watching Weasley as he rested. His breathing was shallow, and he was very thin and green. With his red hair, he looked like some kind of demented Christmas decal. There was also still the large burn on his arm.

"I found two pox, Professor Snape," she said, suddenly. "Both on his chest."

So he was in the next stages, then. Good thing I had brought him here in time.

"What kind of medication will he require?" I asked. "If I will be of no more use, I would kindly like to return home and do some resting of my own."

"Have you talked to Headmaster Dumbledore yet?" McKenzie asked.

I blinked. "No."

"What about the Weasley family?"

I narrowed my eyes. "No."

McKenzie sighed. "I think now would be a good time to do that, Professor. You see, there is no cure for this new strain as of yet. The Healers of this ward are working tirelessly, and we have England's greatest Potioneers doing their best to aide them. We could really use your help, actually. After you notify Dumbledore and the Weasley family, that is."

"Did you say there was no cure?" I asked, slowly.

McKenzie shook her head. "No, as I said, not yet-"

"Then what was the purpose in risking both our lives by bringing him here?" I continued, barely containing my anger.

McKenzie seemed to realize that she was about to bare the brunt of my temper. "Because we have the best facility in the Wizarding world."

"How long does he have?" I demanded.

"I'm afraid that in two weeks time nothing will be able to be done."

I glared. "That's what they told me in Romania."

McKenzie had nothing to say to this. After a long silence, in which Healer Channel came in to administer some potions to Weasley, McKenzie told me, "We're going to do everything we can for him. We've been using tissue samples from some of the other patients, testing everything the Healers and Potion makers have come up with. They'll find something."

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Later that evening, after informing Dumbledore that I had arrived at St. Mungo's with Charlie Weasley and explained the situation, I was pacing the hall outside of Weasley's room like a caged manticore. I felt like all of this, all my efforts to bring Weasley here from Romania and keep him alive in the process, had been for nothing. They were no closer to helping him than the Healers at Dragomirna. I risked not only Weasley's life, but my own as well. We could have been sucked dry by vampires, for Merlin's sake! Why is it that I surround myself with a bunch of useless-

"Stop that pacing!" someone yelled, suddenly. "You're making me nervous!"

I looked around, expecting to see one of those infernal, green clad, good for nothing healers. Instead I found a pair of eyes staring down at me from a large portrait of whom the ward was named after.

Gunhilda of Gorsemoor, famous for - what else? - finding the cure for Dragon Pox.

"Besides, visiting hours are over! Begone!"

I quirked my lips at the portrait in a mock smile. "I reserve special treatment."

Gunhilda's portrait huffed. "That lad you came in with," she said, "does not have Dragon Pox."

This got my attention very quickly.

"I beg your pardon?" I asked.

"It looks like it, alright. Green skin, spots all over the place... but it's not. That's why the antidote's not working."

"Is it in the same family?"

"I just said the antidote's not working, boy, didn't you hear?" Gunhilda snapped at me. "If it was in the same family, it would be doing something, wouldn't it?"

I repressed a sigh. "Do you know what can be done about him, then?"

"I don't," she answered. "But Hippocrates might."

I stared at her. "Hippocrates?"

"That's right."

Great. That's all I bloody needed. An insane portrait who expected me to go talk to Hippocrates. "Well, I'm fresh out of Time-Turners. Perhaps you could explain to me how, exactly, Hippocrates and I are supposed to discuss this new malady."

"He has a portrait, you dumb lump!" Gunhilda yelled. "Honestly, young people nowadays..."

I gritted my teeth. "And how do I find said portrait."

Gunhilda paused, and I half expected her to tell me she had no bloody clue, when she cleared her throat, and - I kid you not - burst into song.

I sing of a tale worthy of myth and legend,
Few who doubted were later enlightened.
I tell the story of how St. Mungo came to be,
An apparition that Bonham had come to see.

Grecian wizard of the past was this great man,
Through him Mungo Bonham's vision hath began.
When the hospital was built, Hippocrates' ghost was at peace.
Bondage upon his soul, this world hath finally release.

A portrait of this ghost is all we have now,
One summer night is all that nature would allow.
A night he'll come to share his boundless knowledge,
The only time when this ghostly portrait gain earthly passage.

Alas, we know the time but ne'er the place ...
Place whence the Healer's presence be grace.
Many-a-claim from those who saw and were helped,
Many-a-patients his healing presence hath been felt.

I had to restrain myself from staring slack-jawed. "You cannot be serious."

Gunhilda stared right back. "What do you mean?"

"I could ask you the same thing. So, what you're telling me is, it's not an actual portrait of him. It's some fabled portrait of his ghost, that only appears at night?"

"Yes," she answered.

"So, you don't know where this ghost portrait will appear, but you do know when?"

Gunhilda's portrait nodded.

"Would you mind telling me," I said, through clenched teeth.

"Perhaps if you ask politely," the portrait said.

I rolled my eyes.

"Could you tell me what time Hippocrates' portrait will appear, please?"

"Certainly," Gunhilda nodded. "Tonight."

Well, that figured.

But, it was something. Hippocrates was the greatest healer in magical history. Surely his knowledge of ancient potions and magical healing techniques would be useful somehow. I resigned to search the entire hospital for this ghost portrait. After all, there were only six floors. It was not going to be that difficult.

It turns out that I was abysmally wrong.

A/N: Ergh, no comments about the poem, please. It was written by whoever designed the challenge :-/