Caduceus Chapter 1: Another Ordinary Day, a harry potter fanfic

Harry Potter was fairly certain he was getting too old for this shit.

It was half past three in the morning and he was sitting alone in a darkened cafeteria, still at work twenty hours in, wishing he was at home in his warm bed but too tired to make the effort to leave the hospital. The coffee was too weak, too cold, and just plain bad, but he sipped at it anyway.

It hardly mattered. Coffee was coffee, and even truly awful coffee was still better than no coffee.

A car passed outside, its headlights sweeping across the empty tables as it went. The glare stung his eyes but he dared not close them. Still work to be done, and he really ought to head home. No point falling asleep at some table.

At least it had stopped raining.

Even in a place where it seemed to rain more days than it didn't, people got stupid in the rain. Stupid people meant longer shifts. Harry sipped at the coffee, wishing it was stronger, hotter, and less rubbish. He really should be going home.

He even had the next day – or the rest of the day, really – off. And yet…

Work to be done still.

A door creaked open down the hall; someone out for a smoke to make it through the long night shift. Harry slugged back the rest of the coffee and stood. His back cracked noisily, his knees ached, and his feet throbbed dully. He yawned and his jaw clicked in the silence.

Thirty years old, now. Might as well be three hundred. Work to be done. Always, work to be done. He'd just check in on the overnighters on the way out. The paperwork could hold until he got back, or maybe one of the interns would do it. Unlikely. He hadn't been assigned any, which was for the best really. Plenty of work to do without babysitting anyone, and the hospital didn't like to advertise that they had him on staff, which suited him just fine.

Harry's heels clicked softly as he tread the familiar path back towards the in-patient rooms, echoing slightly off the hardwood floor. The large shift clock over the double doors leading back to the emergency ward read a quarter to four.

Tariq Prince was manning the station tonight. Good bloke. Calm head, kind to the patients, stayed out of the workplace dramatics for the most part. Harry liked the mediwizard and thought he'd do well in a supervisory role in a few years.

"Good morning, Tariq" he greeted, tiredly. "How're our patients tonight?"

"Asleep, as we all should be," the man replied. "On your way home?"

"Soon, just need to check in on a few first." Harry answered. "Singleton, Mehta, Gough, and Carpenter."

Prince nodded and shuffled through the folders on his desk. "45, 50, 7, and 33. Mehta was up a bit around an hour ago, asked us to up his pain potions again."

"Not surprised. Broken broom, charms on those things might as well be curses if they end up inside someone. Anything else?"

The mediwizard shook his head and handed over the charts. Harry nodded, waved, and set off down the hall. He shuffled through the folders as he walked, arranging them in the proper order.

Room 7, Jacqui Gough. Age 35. Bronchial infection. Coughing, fatigue, fever, chills, kept overnight due to difficulty breathing and chest pain. She'd be out in the morning. Numbers looked fine, and checking the monitoring charm on the door, everything seemed fine as well.

Further down the hall, a door clicked open and an orderly stepped out with a rather full bedpan. All the magic in the world at their disposal, and the poor bugger still had to carry piss around for a living. Still, better to carry piss than accidently trigger something in one of the patient rooms and end up wishing you hadn't.

"Morning Kieron."

"Healer Potter."

"Good night?"

"Had worse. You?"

"Can't complain, nearly done."

"Lucky bastard."

"Don't I know it."

Room 33, Heidi Carpenter. Age 48. Weakness, urinary incontinence, fatigue, had some strange findings in her serologic testing. Scheduled for a consult with Hobbs at eight. Harry didn't envy her the biopsy she'd probably end up having. Charms on the door looked fine, and the woman at least appeared to be asleep when he checked through the window.

It really was a quiet night, and Harry was glad for it. Things tended to be quiet most nights, really, because Wainwright Regional was still a relatively new hospital – or rather, a very old hospital made obsolete by St. Mungos and only relatively recently renovated by the Ministry's new healthcare plan. Apparently, having the only viable emergency medical facility in Magical Britain located in London and primarily accessible exclusively via magical means was discriminatory against patients with non-magical families. No shit.

Room 45, John Singleton. Age 57. Recovering from an aortic dissection. Rough. Still, the cardiac specialist had been able to stop the bleeding and repair the damage effectively. Singleton would have a nasty scar, but other than that he would survive. A few more days of observation, a hell of a lot of pain potion, and he'd be on his way. Monitoring charms looked good. Singleton's wife was at his bedside, reading a well-used paperback, and looked up as he peeked in. He shook his head when she made to stand and she nodded in reply.

The door a few down was open, lamps burning bright, and Harry heard low voices. Mehta was up, it seemed, and one of the mediwitches was attending to him. Almost got out clean, but no such luck.

Gilbert Mehta, age 52. Took a turn too fast on his old Hogwarts broom and ran into the side of his house. Shattered femur, abdominal impalement, and a few hundred puncture wounds from splinters of his poor Cleansweep. Painful way to be reminded he wasn't young anymore. Of course, Mehta was also a right arse, so Harry only had so much sympathy for the wanker.

Heather Vincent was the mediwitch on the ward tonight, Harry discovered as he entered the room, and that made up for having to deal with the ornery patient at least. Vincent was pretty, warm towards the patients, and had a vicious sense of humor that always made him laugh. At the sound of the door closing behind him, both she and Mehta looked up.

"Hello, Gilbert," he greeted. "Everything alright?"

"I erm…that is to say…"

It was obvious that Mehta had been saying something rather unkind a moment before, and when faced with a more authoritative figure suddenly felt rather abashed. He was fortunate that Vincent was his attending medic, as several of the other options would have allowed him to flounder.

"Everything is fine, Healer Potter. Gilbert is having a bit of restlessness now that the nerves in his leg are reknit."

"Yes, that does tend to happen. Pins and needles or ants in your bones, Mr Mehta?"

Gilbert blinked, then answered, "Ants, definitely. Is that….is there something wrong?"

"Not at all," Harry replied easily. "I'd be more worried with the pins and needles personally. Ants in the bones means that the nerves are more or less recovered and the muscles are starting to heal more quickly. It's a good sign really."

The patient nodded, seeming mollified. Seeing this, Vincent jumped in.

"He is also reporting some pain from the abdominal injury and says that the surface wounds are itching. I'd up the dosage on his potions but he's still in the widow from his last dose."

Harry checked the chart to see how long it would be before the man could take another dose and sighed. Far too long – five odd hours still. Doing the math quickly, he sorted out a supplemental dosage and said, "lets go ahead and add a quarter vial of Kenst-12 to his plan, and increase his fluids by twenty or so."

The mediwitch nodded, jotted down his notes on her copy of the chart, and Harry turned back to Mehta. "Alright Gilbert," he said, "we're going to add a bit of a sedative to your treatment course, just to help you rest. The discomfort in your legs is normal, and you have just had fairly major abdominal surgery. I know the pain is bad, but we really can't risk increasing the dosage on your pain potions without potentially damaging your liver or kidneys. I really am sorry. Do you have any questions?"

"The itching?"

"Ah yes. Brooms are heavily charmed objects, Mr. Mehta, as I am sure you know. When the shaft broke, the charms broke with it, but the residual magic that had been stored in the broom didn't have anywhere to go. That magic interacted with the magic we used to remove the splinters and so some lasting discomfort is, unfortunately, to be expected. It will go away in a day or two, and once you get home a warm bath will help. Anything else?"

Mehta shook his head.

"Excellent," Harry replied, closing the man's chart, "then I will leave you in Mediwitch Vincent's more than capable hands. My shift will be over before you wake from your rest, but I am adding you on to Healer Longbottom's rota."

"Isn't Healer Longbottom at the Brighton conference this week?" Vincent interrupted. Realizing she had jumped in she blushed prettily, and Harry could not prevent the smile that formed in response.

"Keeping track, Heather?" he teased, not unkindly. "Healer Longbottom is back on the schedule for the day shift today. The conference didn't turn out as exciting as he had hoped and he decided to return early. Something about the whole thing being an excuse for the Americans to take holiday, apparently."

"Healer Longbottom is a good friend of mine," he added to the patient. "You will be in the very best of hands."

A few minutes later, having dropped off the charts with Tariq, Harry was finally on his way home. The clock read half past four as he made his way towards the staff fireplace. He could already feel the soft carpet beneath his feet back at his flat, and the prospect of sleep after nearly a full day of more or less constant work sounded like paradise.

His hand was on the handle of the staff lounge door when he felt his wand vibrate.

For an instant, Harry seriously considered ignoring the page. If it was something serious, though, they'd just send someone back to get him again. He turned on his heel and headed back to work. The clock read four thirty-seven as he ducked into the lifts and made for the main emergency department. Alone for just one more moment, he let out an exhausted sigh, turned his head to relieve the pressure in his neck in a series of staccato pops, and rolled his shoulders.

Always work to be done.

Despite the early hour, or perhaps because of it, the Emergency Department was busy. Patients waited impatiently, medics and healers hurried to see them, and orderlies pushed those with more specialized needs to other areas of the hospital on floating stretchers. Somewhere in the lobby it sounded like a child was vomiting – kids always had a different timbre when they were sick than adults, and somehow always seemed to find the worst possible way to make the floors dirty. At least the orderlies could just vanish the sick in the waiting areas.

"You paged," Harry asked one of the medics at the desk when he arrived.

The woman nodded and called out to a healer, just dropping off a chart at the station.

"Potter, good to see you, thought you might have been at home."

"Should have been around 9 hours ago, but that's life for you. What do you need?"

"Patient requesting you personally, wife says you know them."

Harry groaned. This he did not need tonight.

It didn't happen often, as it had been 13 years since he had defeated Voldemort and the hospital generally kept his presence under wraps – which he was eternally grateful for – but sometimes a patient would come in, claim to be personally familiar with him, and expect to be moved up the queue. It usually worked, because he wasn't about to refuse to see a patient, especially if they actually were someone he would want to see personally. When he'd started working at Wainwright, the administrators had made a list of approved patients, but he hadn't updated it in years and these days no one bothered to check it anymore.

"Name?"

"Weasley…uh…William"

Harry's heart stopped for an instant. He wasn't as close with the Weasleys as he had been while he was at Hogwarts, what with a career and such, but he still worried. Bill had always been kind to him, especially after things with Voldemort wrapped up. Bill had been there for him when his relationship with Ginny fell apart, and when he'd decided to leave auror training to pursue healing as well.

"Then she isn't wrong. What room?"

"Ten. I'll walk you through the chart as we head over."

Harry accepted the folder as they walked, reading through her notes while she quickly summed them.

William Weasley, age 40. Presents with acute abdominal pain, low grade fever, nausea. Tests read normal but presence of cursed injuries reduce margin of error for magical diagnostics out of acceptable accuracy threshold. Physical exam shows no evidence of recent abdominal trauma or inflammation. Abdominal palpation shows tenderness and slight swelling in lower right quadrant.

"All in all, it doesn't seem serious," Harry added, shuffling through the chart. "Fever is a bit worrying, but it could be from the pain. Hell, if it weren't for the old werewolf scars…"

"I know. Better you than me. I've only been here since 11, and let me tell you…"

Harry knew what she meant. "Fleur can be a bit overwhelming, I know. She has a good heart though, and you couldn't ask for a better witch to have in your corner."

"You're just saying that because you've got a thing for blondes."

Harry shook his head, looking over at the other healer for the first time. He was so tired and so very focused on this one last thing standing between him and his warm, comfortable bed, that he hadn't bothered to think about who he was talking to. Which was odd, seeing as he'd spent the better part of five years dating the woman.

"We both know that's not true, Vicky."

And it wasn't. Victoria Welsh was the first woman he'd been even remotely interested in after he and Ginny had went their separate ways. Tall, brilliant, and brunette, they had met on the first day of their residencies at St Mungo's and been in bed together by Christmas. Of course after that things had been on and off again for the rest of his time in London - their relationship had been one of mutual support, a way to manage the ridiculous stress of the job – but eventually, after they'd finished up their training and settled into the routine of shift work at Wainwright, they'd been serious. In the end the split had been…well not amicable, but at least unsurprising.

She rolled her eyes and made a disbelieving sort of scoff but didn't correct him. Harry grinned. Victoria shook her head and knocked lightly on the door to Room 10.

"Mr Weasley, Mrs Weasley, I…"

"Harry!" Fleur interrupted. Harry noted the way Victoria's brow furrowed at the slight and tried very hard to feel bad for the woman. "This healer told us that everything is alright, but I was not certain that she is familiar with all of Bill's history…"

"It's all in the charts, Fleur," Bill cut in, reaching out to place a calming hand on his wife's arm from his position on the exam bed. "I'm sure that Victoria is more than capable of keeping track of that sort of thing."

"Still…"

Harry cut in, before things became less civil. He knew that Fleur was not fond of Victoria and that the feeling was mutual, from the few times that the two had interacted at the Burrow.

"Healer Welsh is a terrific healer, Fleur, and I don't say that lightly," he assured. Victoria looked up at him in surprise. He ignored her and continued, "but I do understand that you are worried and would like a second opinion, so let's go through your chart and be extra thorough, why don't we?"

Taking that as her cue to leave, Victoria added, "and I will see to other patients. You are in the very best of hands, as I'm sure you're aware."

Bill thanked her, Fleur nodded in agreement, and Harry pulled up a chair from the corner while she left. "Ok, let's take a look here, he began."

Twenty minutes later, Harry's version of the chart was functionally identical to Victoria's. He had not seen anything out of the ordinary, despite actively looking to dispute the earlier findings. Under both magical and non-magical tests, it really did look like everything was essentially fine. "Honestly Bill, from everything I'm seeing I'd say there is a good chance that we don't have anything to worry about. If I had to put down a proper diagnosis I'd probably say you're just…well just a bit stopped up really."

"What?" Bill asked, incredulously. "Are you saying we came down here and made a fuss because I'm constipated?"

Harry couldn't help it. He laughed, fully and with the slight manic edge that tended to come from sleep deprivation. "Yes," he agreed, "that is most likely the case. Truth be told it could have been something more serious, so you were right to come in, but this time you seem to have got off lucky. Significant pain is not unusual for severe constipation, and it is not entirely uncommon for that pain to trigger the sympathetic appearance of your other symptoms."

Bill groaned. "I'll never hear the end of this…"

"Healer-patient confidentiality," Harry replied easily. "Not a word from me."

The other man laughed, but his wife did not. Fleur's brow, perfect as always, furrowed ever so slightly. "Certainly it can't be that simple, though, Harry. Constipation? Aren't there any other tests you can…"

"No, there aren't, and it does make sense, Fleur," Bill interrupted firmly. "I'm just ready to head home. I'll take a quick potion and everything will be sorted out, right Harry?"

"Most likely, yes," Harry answered. "Be careful to modulate the dosage of the laxative though, don't overdo it. And remember to hydrate. If you don't see a significant change by this evening you really should come back in."

"I've been stopped up before, Harry!"

"If the pain is significant enough to warrant coming in, then it's significant enough to come back if it doesn't go away."

His patient looked mutinous.

"I'm serious, Bill."

"Ok, ok…"

Fleur hit him. Bill had the good grace to look sheepish before his glaring wife and Harry changed tack. "Keep him honest, Fleur. I know you will, and I am certain everything will be fine."

"Thank you, 'Arry," she agreed gratefully, accent slipping through slightly on his name. "I know I might be a bit…much, but…"

Harry waved her off. "Completely understandable. In fact, let me add you onto my alert rota, that way if you need to come back in I will be alerted immediately."

"You don't have to do that," Bill replied, but the look on Fleur's face said otherwise. If doing so would put her more at ease, then it was the least Harry could do, because, "of course I do. There should be some advantage to putting up with me for all these years."

Having said his piece and reassured Bill and Fleur, Harry let the couple go and made his way back towards the staff fireplace and home. If he stayed much longer he would be caught up in the day shift, and then who knew when he'd get to sleep? Even walking quickly, it took five minutes to drop off Bill's chart, let Victoria know the case was covered, and take the lift back up to the staff lounge. The ward clock read half past five as he tossed in a pinch of floo powder and finally – finally – left for his flat.

The place was cold and dark when he arrived, but he was too tired to care. He spent more time at the hospital than at home anyway, and to be honest it never really bothered him much anymore. Sure, the quiet got overwhelming sometimes. Absolutely, he wished he'd left a light on. But even if he had had someone to come home to he'd never see them anyway. That was the job.

Always work to be done, after all.

Rubbing his eyes, he kicked off his shoes, not bothering to untie them. The carpet beneath his sock clad feet might very well be the best thing he'd ever felt and he had to fight against the urge to just lie down there on the floor in front of the fireplace. It wouldn't be the first time, but he had the whole rest of the day off to sleep and knew that he'd regret that decision in a few hours when he woke up feeling like he'd been trampled half to death. So instead he sat at the old kitchen table he'd found in a second hand shop with Neville, planning to just sit for a moment, and promptly fell asleep.

An instant later, he was jerked awake by a piercing shriek from his robe pocket. Harry leapt up, heart pounding, and very nearly vomited as his head swam at the sudden movement. Sunlight burned through the kitchen blinds, and the clock read 8:31. The shrieking continued and he rummaged for his wand even as he tried and failed to focus.

Jacqui Gough, 35.

Heidi Carpenter, 48.

John Singleton, 57.

Gilbert Mehta, 52.

He ran through the list as he finally found the screaming bit of wood to check the emergency page. It was almost certainly Mehta, he reasoned, though honestly Singleton's operation had been a bit rough as well, and there was always a danger with neurology work…

Harry checked the paging charm and swore.

William Weasley.

Forty-five seconds later, Harry tumbled out of the staff fireplace and set off at a run for the stairs. The lifts would be too slow this time of day. His robes were loose, one shoe still untied, and his hair atrociously messy, but he couldn't have cared less. The door slammed shut behind him and he didn't bother to apologize to the mediwitch he very nearly flattened as he sprinted down the stairs.

One flight, two, three flights, and he barged out into the ground floor lobby without so much as slowing. "Weasley, room," he barked at the medic at the front desk.

"Seventeen," he answered, "Welsh attending."

Harry was sprinting now. His untied shoe flapping dangerously and the collar of his robe still unfastened.

Room 2. Room 3. 4. 5. 6.

An orderly stepped out into the hallway, pulling a patient. "Move!" Harry yelled, and the man ducked quickly out of the way.

Room 7. Room 8. Room 9. 10. 11. 12.

Harry's wand began to warble as a lamp further down the hall suddenly burned a searing, terrible blue.

Room 13. Room 14. Room 15.

"Move!" he bellowed, and the pair of medics that had been rushing to answer the code light scattered.

Room 16.

The handful of strides left seemed to lengthen infinitely as Harry's world drowned in the sounds of his own heart pounding in his ears and the burning pain in his chest. His vision narrowed and he distantly noted the sound of his own voice, as though listening beneath the surface of the Black Lake.

Room 17.

Victoria was hovering over Bill, her wand moving slowly in the odd circular motion of a respiration charm, a slight hesitation that he'd never seen before in her work. A medic was performing aggressive chest compressions. Harry froze, unable to understand what he was seeing.

Bill had been constipated.

Backed up.

This wasn't possible.

"Cart!" someone yelled, and Harry reacted on instinct, jumping hard to the side. A medic shoved a crash cart into the room, and Victoria caught his eye in its wake.

"Now, Potter" she snapped, and his training took over.

Suddenly focused, Harry raced to the cart and tore open the top drawer. The pads were already open and his hands were steady as he placed them quickly on either side of Bill's chest. If he'd coded just now there was still a chance if he moved fast enough…

Harry marked the indicator strips and the medic – Frost? Nelson? – stepped back. "Cleared," the man reported.

His wand came up, the tip already incandescent and the incantation on the tip of his tongue, and then he remembered. Bill had been attacked by Fenrir Greyback. The scars on his face and torso were cursed. Who knew what a resuscitation spell would do if it interacted with them?

"Patient is cleared," Frost-or-Nelson reminded him.

Could he take the risk? Fleur had been concerned that Bill's injuries made magical diagnosis inaccurate, and she had been right to worry. How often did he have to tell medics or orderlies or even healers not use magic until they could confirm a neutral environment?

"Cleared, Potter."

"We will lose him, Harry."

And they would. Cursed or not, without a quick resuscitation Bill was dead. Harry blinked, hoped, and said the incantation.

A blinding flash lit the room, and Harry watched as the thin red hair on Bill's chest suddenly stoon on end. The monitoring charm blipped for a moment, then silenced once more.

Harry tried again, pouring more of himself into the spell the second time.

Another blip. Silence.

Again.

The faint smell of something rancid burning filled the room. Silence.

Again.

Silence.

Again.

"Potter."

Again. Again. Again.

"Harry."

He raised his wand, hands shaking, and making to try again, but suddenly he could not. There was nothing left. The words left his mouth, but there was no flash. The monitor did not blip.

He tried again.

"Harry, that's enough."

"Fuck," Frost-or-Nelson added.

Harry blinked. He stared at his hands, and all at once everything caught up to him. He stumbled, and someone caught him with a chair when he fell.

The world folded in around him, and he vaguely noted a woman's voice.

Victoria.

"Easy, Harry. Easy. Just breathe. In and out,"

He looked up at her. She really was very pretty. He'd always thought so, from the very moment he'd met her.

"That's it, look at me Harry. I'm right here."

His eyes drifted down of their own volition, away from her soft, reassuring voice and back to Bill's cold, still form.

"Get him out of here," a new voice interrupted, firmly but without heat. Warren, chief of the Emergency Department. He'd always liked Warren. Respected him.

Bill was dead.

It wasn't possible.

How could it be possible?

Dead. From what? Constipation?

Ridiculous. What had it been? What had he missed?

He was rolling further from Bill now. One of the orderlies had conjured wheels on the chair.

It didn't make sense, Bill – dead.

What had he missed?

Didn't make sense.

Bill. Dead.

It didn't make sense.

What had he missed?