Chapter 3

"That old guy you like is back in bed 8," the smiling face of her annoying best work friend said as she organized papers on the large reception desk in the middle of the ward. Alicia was sitting behind the desk, finishing up paperwork on charts of patients that had been discharged over the past few hours. She tried to carve out a small amount of time every few hours during her shift to make sure that she caught up on all of it. Otherwise, she would end up staying way later after her shift to finish it up.

"There's nothing wrong with enjoying the company of hilarious old men. But I don't have time right now," Alicia responded, waving to the paperwork she was currently in the middle of.

"Well, don't say I didn't let you know and give you first dibs," her friend Carolina said before she skipped off in the direction of bed 8. Alicia chuckled and shook her head in mirthful disbelief at the other girl. The two had gotten pretty close over the past year as they went through the crazy, rapid-paced Healer training at St. Mungo's Hospital.

Now, Alicia and Carolina were a few months into their residency where they took all their theoretical and non-human practiced medicine they'd learned and put it to actual practice. Finding brief moments of joy in the otherwise hectic days that had become Alicia's new normal were very important. Otherwise, a girl could go crazy.

"Spinnet!" the harsh voice of her supervising healer called from down the hall. The suddenness and volume of the call made Alicia jump a little. She mussed a few of her papers in the process and then cursed as she hurried to reorganize them. Still a little flustered, Alicia gathered up her stack of papers, sent them to her cubby in the healer's lounge and hurried off in the direction of her severe and dictatorial supervisor. If she didn't come immediately when called, the older woman would assign her to demeaning manual labour that would leave her in immense amounts of pain.

"Ma'am," Alicia said, a little out of breath when she arrived in front of the woman. The older healer's greying brown hair was pulled back in a harsh bun that made her already angular face even more pointed. Alicia felt it made her look like muggle depictions of witches, without the green skin and warts.

"We've got a difficult case coming in. Some more sod drank himself into a stupor and needs to dry out for a bit but he's been a bit difficult, fighting off the other healers. I trust that you should be able to handle him though," she said then sent Alicia away in the direction of the potentially hostile patient's room with a dismissive wave.

Alicia put on a smile, pretending that she was glad for the job, even though she wished her supervisor would stop giving her such difficult work. Alicia knew that it wasn't because the older woman had some sort of faith in her abilities; for some strange reason, Alicia felt it went beyond cruelty and that the other woman was trying to get Alicia to drop out of the program.

Alicia arrived at the patient room, bed 3, and found it quiet. She took that as a good sign. Perhaps the patient, whoever he was, had passed out and wouldn't cause her any problems while Alicia went about tending to him. She slowly and carefully, opened the door and slipped into the room.

When Alicia saw who was lying in the bed, looking almost like a corpse, she felt her heart drop and like she was going to faint.

"George!" she whispered in shock, her hand fluttering to her mouth. Then, she took a deep calming breath and allowed her healer instincts to take over. This wasn't George, her friend from school and, if she was being completely honest with herself, the man she'd had a crush on for years. This was just another patient. She could handle this.

Alicia pulled out her wand and quickly cast a few diagnostic spells. Healer Greenslow, her supervisor, had given her a brief overview, that he'd apparently drunk himself into a near coma, but she didn't know any more than that. If she was going to be effective, she needed a clearer picture of what exactly was going on with George Weasley.

George was drunk. His blood alcohol level was somewhere around .3, which was probably one of the highest Alicia had ever recorded. She didn't even want to contemplate how many drinks it had taken him to get to that point. She frowned; rumour had it that George wasn't taking Fred's death very well, not that Alicia blamed him. She'd thought about checking in on him since the war, see how he was doing, but she'd gotten so busy with her job that she just hadn't had a moment. She was either working, eating and sleeping, or relaxing with her boyfriend. There wasn't a lot of free time in a Healer-in-training's life.

As she took in the sight of him lying unconscious on the bed, Alicia felt guilt well up inside of her. Obviously, George was not okay. Maybe if Alicia had stopped by once or twice, let George know that he wasn't alone in the world, things wouldn't have gotten this bad.

Alicia recorded the information she had ascertained from her examination and resolved to do better by George from then on. And she was going to start right then.

She quickly hurried out of the patient room to the supply cabinet that held the various remedies and cure-alls that were used to heal patients. She searched for the amber liquid that acted like a pepper-up potion but was ten times more effective. It would help George with any nausea, headaches, or other pains he might experience when he woke up. Otherwise, all the hospital could do for him was keep him hydrated. He'd just have to sleep all this off.

The petite witch scurried back into the room, delivered the remedy, ensured that George was receiving the necessary fluids, and then pulled up a chair. She waved her wand, summoning her paperwork, and settled in. Her current plan, to sit beside George as he slept off the copious amounts of alcohol he'd consumed, had two benefits to her. The first was that Alicia would be able to monitor George, make sure that he was fine and that nothing went wrong. The second was that hiding in a patient room meant she wouldn't be disturbed by Healer Greenslow and she could finally finish the near mountain of paperwork she'd accumulated over her shift thus far.

She only had about another hour left on her shift; and the paperwork would definitely take her longer than that, but at least she'd have an excuse to stay late and keep an eye on George. If anyone asked, she could say that she was just looking for a quiet space to finish her paperwork. Healers-in-training did it all the time -sat in with comatose or unconscious patients to get work done. The rooms were all quiet and people didn't usually look in on those patients, so they could get a few hours of uninterrupted work. No one would think twice about Alicia sitting there.

George's head hurt. He'd woken up with hangovers before, especially in the last few months, but this was, by far, the worst hangover he'd ever experienced. He tried to open his eyes but the light pierced him through and he had to quickly close them again it was too painful. Along with the head throbbing came a sense of fogginess. His brain wasn't functioning, he couldn't process where he was or what had happened. The last thing he remembered, the last thing he was consciously aware of, was sitting at his favourite pub downing drink after drink. Now he was waking up in a bed that he was pretty sure wasn't his own.

With a great deal of effort, George moved his arms around the bed. Maybe he had found another woman and gone home to her house. It didn't happen that often that George didn't sleep in his own bed, but he had, on occasion, woken up in someone else's bed.

However, his arms didn't connect with anything. In fact, the sheets that he was feeling beneath his arms were cheap and uncomfortable. Most definitely not the sheets that someone would pick out for their home. George had no idea where he was. The only option left was for him to open his eyes, face the piercing pain that accompanied that, and observe his surroundings.

Slowly, George lifted one eyelid, then the other. It took a few seconds, and a lot of pain, but eventually George's eyes adjusted to the light. It was not a warm light, but an intense, almost factory-like lighting. With more effort than he should have needed to exert, George turned his head to the right.

Curled up in a chair, fast asleep, was his friend from Hogwarts, Alicia Spinnet. She was wearing the green scrubs of a St. Mungo's healer.

'Ah,' George thought. 'I must have had a bit too much to drink.'

As he lay in his bed, looking at Alicia peacefully, though a little awkwardly, sleeping in the small chair, he felt his eyelids begin to droop once again. He was losing consciousness, being dragged back down into the sweet bliss of darkness.