The Eye Of The Gazer
Chapter 11
At St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Cho was greeted by a dark haired Healer in lime green robes, who immediately took her to a single-bedded side ward where she saw Bryony, looking very small and deathly pale, lying in a bed too large for her. Jane Currer was sitting anxiously by the bedside, and instantly leapt to her feet when she saw Cho.
Cho turned to the Healer with a questioning look. "Please tell me what's wrong with my daughter. I haven't been told anything at all yet."
"She has been poisoned," said the Healer, who introduced herself as Madam Luxor, Healer-in-Chief of the Potion and Plant Poisoning Ward. Cho gasped. The Healer shook her head. "I'm sorry, I should have said she poisoned herself. Your daughter has been eating laburnum peas. We don't know how many she ate before Miss Currer saw what she was doing. The poison acted too quickly to ask Bryony herself. She's gravely ill at the moment. But Miss Currer acted very quickly, and brought her here immediately, so she has the best chance of recovery in the circumstances."
Cho felt she could not absorb what was being said to her. "Gravely ill?" she asked, then, "Do you mean she could - die?" For Cho knew that ingesting laburnum peas could kill a child.
Madam Luxor did not answer directly, but instead said, "We're doing everything we can. She's in the best possible place." Cho recognised this as the standard Healer way of putting the best possible interpretation on matters. She barely had time to digest these words before she looked up to see Lucius being shown into the ward by a Mediwitch. He took one look at his daughter, looking so weak and vulnerable against the white sheets, and then turned to Madam Luxor: she repeated her explanation to Lucius. Cho saw him blanch as he realised the seriousness of the situation.
Lucius seemed dumbstruck as he went to Bryony's bedside and looked down at her. The black hair spilling over the pillow accentuated the whiteness of his darling daughter's face. His legs seemed to collapse beneath him as he sat down suddenly on a convenient chair. Then Lucius tore his eyes away from his child, and looked across the bed at Jane, standing opposite him, unconsciously wringing her hands.
"How did it happen?" he asked her, in a voice raw with emotion, then, more savagely, "Who was with her?"
Jane spoke, her voice barely audible. "I was." She swallowed. In a voice ridden with guilt, she continued, "We were in the walled garden. You know how much Bryony loves it there. I often sit and let her run about, and she will fetch me if she wants to show me something, or if she gets bored alone. She knows what plants she must not touch, both Professor Granger and I have told her so often not to pick anything from the physic garden or the potion beds.
"The gardener was there today. He was harvesting some of the vegetables from the kitchen garden. He told Bryony that the last of the peas were ready for picking, and she offered to help collect them. She knows what to do, she did it last year too. He gave her a trug, and she went off to pick peas. She likes to eat raw peas straight from the pod, so we knew she would be busy for some while.
"We fell into conversation, and I was not watching Bryony all the time. Whenever I looked over at her, she was busy with the pea plants. Then I looked, and I thought she had gone. I was about to search for her, when Neville – that's the gardener - who is taller than me, said that he could see Bryony crouched on the ground next to the vegetable patch. We rushed over to her, and saw she was vomiting. She managed to tell me she felt very dizzy and sick, but she could hardly speak, her mouth was so swollen, and I could see she was losing consciousness. We couldn't understand what had happened to her, because all we could see was a trug full of pea pods, and some discarded empty pods on the ground where she had helped herself to the contents. Then Neville picked up the trug, and looked more carefully: he found that some of the pods were different, they were laburnum pods. Then we realised that some of the empty pods were laburnum pods too, and Bryony must have eaten the laburnum peas. We both knew then that she was seriously ill, so I arranged that she was brought straight here, and Neville went to see Madam Chang to report what had happened."
Cho had been listening to this report in silence. She stated, in a voice barely above a whisper, "But the laburnum tree is in the corner of the walled garden, nowhere near the kitchen garden. I remember we were told it was planted there so that there should be no danger of any child eating laburnum peas instead of edible peas."
It was Lucius who, after a short period of silence, said, "But there have been unseasonably high winds recently, have there not? Perhaps therein lies the explanation?" Cho gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth.
Jane and Cho's eyes met over Bryony's sickbed, each of them registering the truth of this statement. For a split second, relief showed on Jane's face at this revelation: for if it were mischance, this accident was therefore not something for which she could be blamed; but immediately this was followed by the return of the haunted, guilty look she had been wearing: for how dare Jane feel relief when her pupil lay fighting for her life beside her?
Cho took the seat beside Lucius, and without thinking, she held out her hand to him, and equally automatically, he took it in his, and the pair sat, staring at the face of their daughter, supporting each other in their mutual pain and helplessness.
Jane saw this small yet significant gesture, and felt a stab in her heart: for here were the parents of the child whom she taught on a daily basis, and however much Jane cared for Bryony, and even more for Bryony's father, the tiny witch was Cho's child and not hers. Jane did not know what she should now do. She had acted as she ought in the face of a medical emergency, and she could do no more. Now she felt as if she were intruding on something private and intimate. Was it more appropriate for her to go, or would it appear heartless to do so?
Lucius it was who saved her. As if feeling her awkwardness, he turned to her, and said gently, "Miss Currer, I thank you for your prompt action. There is no necessity for you to remain here any longer. I suggest you return to Gildenford Hall. Be assured that we shall contact you as soon as there is any change in Bryony's condition."
Jane inclined her head in acknowledgement, and left silently as was her wont.
Lucius and Cho sat side by side united in their worry. Silent tears began to flow down Cho's face, and Lucius did not notice them until she gave a great sob. He put his arms around her and held her close, Cho crying so hard into his shoulder that she had trouble breathing. Eventually, the tears ceased, and Lucius wiped her face with a fresh handkerchief. They sat together in silence, Cho's head on Lucius' shoulder and his arm loosely around her. In this way they remained, hardly moving, as Healers and Mediwitches came and went, checking on Bryony, and leaving again with serious faces. They could see that she was barely breathing, and as it grew dark and the floating crystal bubbles were lit, great shadows around Bryony's eyes made her face look even more ghostly.
In the small hours of the morning, Madam Luxor came yet once more, and examined Bryony. This time she did not leave with a grave expression. Instead she turned to the waiting pair, and said, "This is the crucial time, when the body is at its lowest ebb. Bryony is much weaker now. There is a chance she may slip away at any time."
"Is there nothing more you can do?" asked Lucius, "Nothing you can try?"
"We do not have the skill here at St Mungo's, Mr Malfoy. In some of the continental hospitals, they have Veela Healers, but we have none in England."
Lucius' expression changed as this remark concentrated his full attention on the Healer. "Explain!" he said, "What can a Veela Healer do that you cannot?"
"The Veela have the power to intercede in the World Beyond. In their winged form they may speak to the Ba of a person on the cusp between life and death, for the Ba is also a winged entity. They may persuade the Ba to return to the land of the living. I see you are confused. I am sorry, I am Egyptian, I forget that you are unfamiliar with our beliefs. But the Veela of Europe also understand the concept: the Ba of a person is their essential essence, what makes them unique as a person, that part which carries on into the World Beyond after death; you may call it a soul. In our beliefs, the Ba is part bird, part human, and has the ability to visit the World Beyond even in life: for every night when we sleep, do we not undergo the little death? The Veela have a special connection to the world of the dead, for do not some Veela who have chosen the Dark Arts lure young, faithless men to their deaths? But Veela Healers have harnessed this power for the good, and may prolong life where it seems to them that a threatened death is untimely."
"Tell me two things," said Lucius, staring intently at the Healer, "Can this feat only be performed by a trained Healer, or does any Veela have the power? And does she have to be a pure blood Veela, or does a witch with part Veela blood have the ability too?"
Madam Luxor looked astonished, and Cho also looked at Lucius in slight disbelief, for obviously neither understood the reason for the questions. However, the Healer, perhaps recognising the couple's distress, forbore from remarking on the strangeness of Mr Malfoy's query, and replied, "Many Veela can do this, and that is why they elect to become Healers. But I have never yet met a witch able to intercede who was not a pure blood Veela."
"Nevertheless," said Lucius. "Our need is desperate. My son's fiancée is one quarter Veela. It is worth a try, is it not, to save the life of an innocent child?
"Miss Chang will remain here with our daughter. I shall be back as soon as possible."
Open-mouthed, Cho watched as Lucius strode purposefully out into the corridor, and disapparated with a loud crack.