The Rod of Asclepius
Chapter VI
As Doctor Black Jack was completing his examination of the two students that had been stricken ill by the mysterious malady, the door to the private room opened and another student was wheeled in on a gurney. Madam Pomfrey quickly ran to the door, and almost ran into Filus Flitwick, the head of Ravenclaw house.
"Don't tell me yet another student has fallen ill to this curse!" Pomfrey exclaimed.
"It would appear so!" Filus sighed. "Kiki Karikiya, a transfer student from Mahotokoro, who is in my house of Ravenclaw, was found unconscious in the girls bathroom by Moaning Myrtle late this morning."
"That makes one student from each house, except for Gryffindor," the head nurse gasped. "I have a feeling in my bones that there will be yet another victim of this strange disease before long!"
Dr. Black Jack and Filus Flitwick lifted the child from the gurney, and placed her gently in an empty bed next to Malfoy.
"You would be the Muggle doctor that the headmaster brought in to help treat this illness?" Flitwick asked Kuro.
"He's no Muggle." Professor McGonagall spoke from the door, "though he is only now discovering his latent abilities. We hope that the doctor will be participating in classes here at Hogwarts when he is not involved with patients. It would be a shame to have his talents wither on the vine."
"Ah, a late bloomer!" Flitwick cried out. "Wonderful! Welcome to Hogwarts doctor!"
"Thank you." Kuro replied, accepting Filus's hand in formal greeting. "But now to the matter at hand."
The doctor applied his stethoscope to Kiki's chest and listened carefully to her heart beat and breathing. He pulled open an eyelid and shined his flashlight into her eye, and then repeated the procedure on the other.
"Yes, identical so far. Would someone please help wheel over the medical cart with my equipment?"
McGonagall produced her wand and waved it over toward the corner, causing the rolling cart containing the EEG and EKG monitors to slowly transit across the room and stop by Kiki's bed. The power cord connecting the cart to the wall outlet seemed to extend itself as its length was perfectly adequate.
The doctor connected the stick on probes to Kiki's chest and forehead, and wired her up to the instrumentation. Soon the rolling strip charts began to record the child's heart and brain impulses. Black Jack tore off the strips and examined them.
"She has similar readings to the other two students, there is no doubt in my mind that Kiki has the same infection, whatever it is, though I will draw some of her blood and examine that as well."
McGonagall, who had been watching the doctor carefully kept a concerned look upon her face.
"So far you've only tried your Muggle methods on them," she noted. "You're capable of much more."
"Eventually, perhaps." Black Jack answered. "Up till now this is where my training lies, and I'm not quite ready to blindly throw science and medicine out the window until I've exhausted their potential."
"Very well, Doctor," the professor replied. "Soon enough, you will discover other skills and will appreciate the difference."
Pinoko paced back and forth in the suite that she and the doctor had been assigned to.
"It's not fair!" she yelled to herself, "why do I have to stay locked in here while Sensai is in the hospital examining the patients, I'm his assistant!"
She walked over to the heavy wooden door which separated their suite of rooms from the hallway, and tried to open it. She was quite surprised to find that the door was not locked, although it was quite difficult for her to pull it open due to its weight and the fact that the hinges really needed to be oiled. Still, she soon found herself in the hallway. The problem was that when she looked to the right, and then to the left, everything appeared to be the same. Door after identical door, the patten seemed to repeat forever like looking between a pair of mirrors facing each other. She had no idea which way the doctor had gone. Even worse, she quickly realized that if she went to look for him, she'd probably never find her way back to her room, with all the doors appearing identical.
Well not quite, identical anyway. There were markings on each door, old rune letters that she couldn't read because they were from a very old language that most Muggles had never come across. Pinoko quickly ran back into her room and dug though the bag that she had brought with her. She extracted a box of colored chalk that she had packed, and removed a bright yellow stick. Then leaving the room, she wrote her name on the door as high up as she could reach.
"There, now I will know which is our room!" she said to herself. Pinoko took off to the left, along this side of the corridor she could see a light not too far in the distance where she hoped the passage would turn toward the hospital wing. As she walked along the hallway she had the creepy feeling that she was being watched. Sure enough, the eyes on the portraits lining the walls were following her! One of the paintings spoke to her, "Where are you going, Muggle?"
"Acchonburike" Pinoko cried out, "this is too much! Are you talking to me?" she asked the portrait on the wall.
"You must be the young assistant of that visiting healer, Kuro Hazama." it said.
"Yes, I came with Sensai, but he seems to have forgotten about me." Pinoko sobbed, "Do you know which way to the hospital wing?"
"Yes, it's not too far." The image on the wall said in a friendly voice. "Keep going the way you are and turn right at the first intersection of the hallways. Then keep going until you reach the main dinning hall. You won't mistake that, there will be hundreds of candles floating in the air to light the room. Go through the dinning hall and make the first right turn and follow that hallway to the end. There you will find the hospital wing. Only I must warn you, be careful not to wander from the path I just described, and don't touch anything you may come across. Your safety depends on that."
"Thank you very much." Pinoko said. "You're very helpful for a painting. Who are you?"
"In life, I was know as Godric Gryffindor." the painting replied.
Pinoko bowed in a polite curtsy, and hurried on her way.
Harry and Ron were glad that Snape's potions class was finally over. The lecture had been one of the professors most boring of the semester, and the laboratory period had been most trying. Ron failed three times to get the mixture of bat guano and lizard saliva quite right with the result that the frog he had been assigned to transform back into a tadpole merely grew more warts until it grew to the size of a large cat.
Harry had gotten his mixture right on the second try, and the first attempt was close, although his toad had looked more like a fish than a tadpole at first. Still, Snape had nothing but words of ridicule for both of them, and suggested that they should read several chapters in their text books and practice a variety of basic transformation potions for homework before the next class.
As they left the classroom, Harry could sense that his best friend was not feeling so great.
"Are you all right Ron?" he asked. "Don't let Snape get to you, you know that nothing we do is ever quite good enough for him."
"No, it's not that." Ron replied. "I think I might be having a reaction to something from the potions lab, I feel kinda dizzy all of a sudden."
Harry took a closer look at his companion and noticed that his skin complexion did appear to have a slight copper tint to it.
"I don't want to scare you Ron, but you seem to be turning a bit green in the face." he said.
"I think I'd better go back to our rooms and lie down for a while." Ron stammered. "We do have an hour before our conjuring class."
"That might not be a bad idea." Harry said.
Ron took about three more steps and suddenly fainted. He was able to control his body just long enough to collapse on the floor gently without hitting his head on the floor. Harry bent down and tried to shake his friend back awake and was shocked by the cold clammy feel to Weasley's skin.
Pinoko managed to make it almost all the way to the main dinning room without any serious incident. Just before she got there however, she discovered that her bladder was complaining that it needed to be emptied badly, and she was very happy to find the door to a girl's restroom plainly marked. She quickly ran in to do her business, but discovered that she had spectral company in the form or Moaning Myrtle who was on the toilet with her.
"Hey you!" Pinoko yelled out. "I'm using this one!"
The ghost moaned in the most spooky voice she could produce, refusing to get up from the seat that she was sharing with Pinoko.
The now frightened Pinoko found her dam burst as she urinated on her shoes. This made her very mad, and her anger quickly overcame her fear.
"Now look what you made me do, you damn ghost!" she yelled out. "You're despicable!"
Moaning Myrtle wasn't used to being yelled at in that tone of voice, and she started to cry.
"You shouldn't have said that!" she sobbed.
"Gee, I'm sorry." Pinoko replied, "Don't cry."
The ghostly teenager suddenly seemed to take a more solid form, as Pinoko noticed that she could barely see though her any more. The poltergeist moved closer to Pinoko and examined her closely.
"You're a Muggle, aren't you?" she asked. "What's your name?"
"If you mean I'm not a witch, then you're right." Pinoko said. "It seems my Sensai is a warlock, only he didn't ever know it until yesterday. I'm supposed to be his assistant, he's a great doctor you know. Anyway, my name is Pinoko. What's yours?"
"I'm Myrtle." the ghost said. "I've been dead for over fifty years, and I've been stuck here."
"You live in this bathroom?" Pinoko asked.
"Actually all of them." Myrtle said. "I can travel though the pipes from one restroom to another, and I don't always stay in the girls room. Sometimes I take a bath with the boys!"
"Yuck!" Pinoko laughed.
"Oh they're not so bad." She laughed. "I really like the one called Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter?" Pinoko asked.
"I guess being a Muggle you've never heard of him." Myrtle said. "He's really famous here, and very cute."
"Well, nice meeting you." Pinoko said, trying to make up for the awkward way they first collided with each other. "I've got to get going and find Sensai!"
"Be careful" Myrtle said. "There are other ghosts in the hallway, and in the dining room."
"Yikes!" Pinoko said as she left the room and quickly scurried down the hallway.
Pinoko's eyes almost popped out of her head at the sight of the main dinning hall. Row upon row of tables were neatly setup, waiting for the dinner crowd to show up in a few more hours. The vaulted ceiling seemed to be miles above her head, as if it was lost int the clouds. Thousands of glowing candles floated in the air above her head providing a brilliant light.
"Achonburike!" Pinoko cried out. This place is enormous!"
"Well it has to be, young lady. Do you know how many mouths there are to feed in this place!" a voice came from behind her. Pinoko turned to face another ghost, this one dressed in clothes that looked more appropriate for a time centuries past. His most distinctive feature was a nearly severed head that hung from his neck by a thick wad of flesh.
"YIKEES!" Pinoko yelled.
"Oh, pardon me!" the ghost replied, as he carefully fitted his head back into place. "I didn't notice that you were not a warlock, I didn't mean to frighten you."
"Who are you?" Pinoko asked.
The ghost bowed as he replied, "Nearly Headless Nick" at your service, miss.
"Ha, that's a good one!" Pinoko laughed. "Bet you have a good time during Halloween."
"Actually, no." Nick sighed, "but let's not go into that!"
"Can you help me find the hospital wing? Pinoko asked. "I'm looking for Sensai."
"I'll be happy to escort you there!" Nick said, offering Pinoko his hand. Pinoko slowly took the ghosts hand, and was surprised that while she couldn't actually feel it, her hand didn't quite go though his as if it wasn't there. Nick led Pinoko through the dinning hall, and into the next wing of the complex. There they almost bumped into Harry Potter, who was half carrying, half dragging Ron Weasley over his shoulder.
"Hey Headless! I could use some help, Ron is dead weight." Harry laughed.
"I'll help you." Pinoko said putting Ron's left hand over her shoulder.
"Thank you" Harry said.
"Is the hospital far from here?" Pinoko asked.
"No, we are almost there." Harry answered. They walked forward into the a connecting corridor and arrived at the entrance to the hospital area.