"You won't believe who I was treating today!" I laughed heartily as I tumbled out of the summer sun into the cool shade of my shared flat.
The lack of reply lead me to believe that my flat mate had actually gone to work today, but that was a ridiculous idea. I peered into the kitchen, it was empty but the kettle was still steaming so she couldn't be far away, wondering into the front room I found her huddled up on the couch, a box of tissues and a cup of coffee by her side. One look at her tear-stained face informed me that she was still mourning the death of her relationship.
"Biscuit and a rom-com?" I asked already knowing the answer; she nodded her head not looking up from her position on the couch. I made myself a coffee first, reminiscing on the joyful feeling I had within me before I arrived home. Maybe I could tell my story later. If anyone would understand, Dom would, she won't laugh I doubt she would have even if she was of a less depressed mind, but she'd understand why I was laughing.
"Come on budge over" I pushed her feet off the couch throwing myself down next to her "Biscuits" I stated throwing a pack of custard creams her way "Ryan Gosling!" I beamed kissing the case of 'Crazy, Stupid Love'
"You're a freak." She mumbled a miniature smile creeping onto her lips.
"You love it!" I pouted. "Right movie time!"
"So who did you treat today that'd I'd never believe?" We'd sat through the movie in a near enough silence up until now, not counting the 'mmm's and 'ooo's that escaped me every time Ryan Gosling appeared on screen, he was my celebrity perfection okay? I don't care if he was muggle, and totally out my league we were going to be wed. Once I've found him I can take a leaf out of Voldemort's mum's book and dose him up on love potion until we die. I wonder whether Accio would work, Accio Ryan Gosling! I shall try that later.
"Hmm, what? Did you say something?" my train of thought had gone haywire and I'd forgotten her question.
"Who. Did. You. Treat. Today?" She asked mockingly slow.
"Oh, your cousin." I smiled before turning my attention back to the screen as my Ryan appeared again.
"What? Oh my God? Who? Are they – are they okay?" she jumped from her seat dramatically looking frantically for something, I'm not too sure what she was looking for though.
"Yeah he's fine." I mumbled my mouth full of biscuit "Move out of the way I can't see the telly."
"HE! That doesn't narrow it down much. Who? Emma? Who?" she was hysterical and I figured it probably wasn't a good idea for her to be hysterical in the mournful state she has been in the past week. I grabbed the remote and paused the movie before looking back to an agitated Dominique Weasley.
"It was just James, he had a quidditch accident, broke his back and his leg." I paused sipping my coffee. "I fixed his back he's fine, and he will be whimpering like a baby in his ward right now whilst his left tibia grows back." I smiled evilly before turning to play the movie again. "Dom you're still in the way." But she didn't move she stood there looking at me bewildered. "Dom. What's wrong?"
"I should go see James." She said simply before turning for the door.
"Woah, woah, woah. Wait a minute, apart from family gatherings you haven't been in touch with James since we left Hogwarts. Why would you go see him? Why sympathise the bastard? I thought you didn't like him?" I was totally confused. I was blabbing on, I also didn't want her to go because it's Dom and she'd drag me along with her.
"He's family Emma, and he's going to be devastated." Okay that threw me.
"What? Why will he be devastated?" I shook my head as I spoke, no idea what she was getting at.
"A quidditch accident, he's not going to be playing for the rest of the season. He'll hate himself. It's James we're talking about, he doesn't take things lightly."
"The hypocrite" I mumbled under my breath. "Fine, go see him, take flowers and chocolate and be a happy family together." The spite was dripping from my words, a happy family – my lifelong dream.
"You're coming with me; I'm not leaving you in this horrible mood."
"I'm not in a horr-"
"Shut up." She grabbed me by the arm, not even giving me chance to moan about the fact I was wearing 'comfy clothes'*
*Comfy clothes: -A Chudley Cannons quidditch shirt 3 sizes too big.
-Leggings.
-Slippers.
"I'm in my slippers Dom! YOU IDIOT!" I shouted the minute we landed in the waiting room on the ground floor. Yes, I know I really do deserve an award for drawing attention to myself. Thank you, thank you. First I would like to thank my Mother, without your genes my voice would be nowhere near this loud. So this is for you Mum.
"Shut up moaning." She deadpanned before pulling me down a corridor.
"Wrong way Dom." She didn't reply, she just turned on her heel and began dragging me in the opposite direction. Right now if I had skills in people's emotions or social skills in general I would realise that Dom is pissed off at how laid back I was about the fact the her cousin was in hospital. But I don't and I also have no idea what the right thing to say in any situations in life is, so I ultimately make things worse. All the time.
"It was really hard not to look at his face when I was moving the bones in his back; it would have been a beautiful image to capture in my memory." I mused to myself as we carried on down the corridor. "I even asked if I could stay late to treat him, just so I could watch the pain of skell-o-grow take its next victim." I chuckled evilly "But ol' Cassidy wouldn't let me. I hate that woman." I continued with my self-rambling for the next minute while Dom just replied with an odd growl now and then. "Just walked past his door Dom."
The awkwardness of the room hit me like a brick wall the second Dom opened the door. She didn't go to make conversation with anyone, she just stood there limply. James' family were here visiting so obviously the room was quite crowded.
Dom stared at them.
They stared back.
I couldn't take it.
"Hi I'm Healer Tuck, James' Healer." I smiled pushing Dom out of the way and offering my hand out to be shaken. No one took my hand; they all merely looked at me weirdly. "I'm also Dom's roommate and I didn't want to be here, but she made me come." I dropped my hand and smiled awkwardly at James' family. "I'm gonna go and see if I have any shoes in my locker." I pointed towards the door behind me where Dom still stood limply. I stood there for a second as though expecting some form of reply. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Had these people stopped breathing? I couldn't even hear them breathing which was worrying. Before I made anything worse, I turned and left making sure to pat Dom on the shoulder as I left for good luck.
I'm not joking the second I left the room I'm 99.9% sure I heard laughter. You'd think I was a dementor, sucking the joy from people's lives as I entered the same room as them.
I didn't go for shoes, I didn't have shoes in my locker, why would I? I'm not prepared for slipper incidents like this. I did however go for a coffee from the on call room machine – the one in the waiting room tasted like shit – before taking a long walk back to James' room and sitting outside patiently sipping my coffee, leaning against the wall, attempting to hear conversations. I'm not a freak I promise. Okay I don't promise but I'm still not a freak.
"Your healer seems nice James." The sweet, loving, motherly voice of Ginny Potter sang. My mother sounded like a bloody foghorn mixed with a toad, no sweet or motherly got thrown into the cauldron when Merlin made her.
"She is." He was such a blunt person. I don't think I've ever heard him speak a paragraph in his life. Not that I knew him well, but considering I spent more than a few lessons as his partner in some form or other, I've had a fair few of the blunt conversations, never nice ones. But I'm not getting into that now. Blank mind. Keep calm. Professional face.
"I wonder if she's back from getting shoes, we should apologise." She sang sweetly again. Blank mind. Professional face. "I'll go see." Blank mind. Profess – what? I scrambled up from my position on the floor throwing myself at the nearest chair and trying to find a casual pose just in time for Mrs Potter to walk out of the door.
"Oh, Hi." I smiled as I pretended the noise of the door had awoken me from my solitude.
"Hi, its Healer Tuck isn't it?"
"Emma. Call me Emma – I'm not in work now." Wow, I was impressed I didn't make myself out to be completely retarded and our conversation had been going for over 5 seconds. Yes!
Oh shit. Her mouth is moving. "Sorry what did you say?"
"I was just saying sorry for how rude we were before." She chuckled.
"No worries, it's not every day you go to visit your son in hospital and his healer turns up in her slippers." I laughed nervously but I don't know why, I never was the nervous type I never have been, my dad put it down to lack of common sense. I think it was the reason I was sorted into Gryffindor, after a whole family tree filled with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs I was the first to stray to the other half of the Hogwarts houses. Even Harriet was sorted into Hufflepuff but I think that was purely because of her dreamy nature and lack of intelligence nothing to do with genes. Gryffindor the house that acquainted me with both Dom and James.
After an exchange of awkward smiles, I ended up following Ginny back into James' room. She didn't seem to have understood me earlier when I pointed out that I really didn't want to be here. To my delight, as I entered the conversation carried on and an awkward silence didn't reward me with its presence. I was actually sent a few friendly smiles.
I knew Dom's family were lovely, I'd met her parents a few times as well as her older and younger siblings. Fleur and Victoire were a bit difficult to tolerate after a whole day, but still lovely all the same. And many of her cousins were in Gryffindor so naturally I knew them and they're nice, so I don't understand why I expected this section of her family to be different. I guess I expected Potter to have inherited his awful, unkind, arrogant, self-loving traits from someone, but clearly that member of the family wasn't present because bar James himself there was no arrogance, unkindness of self-loving in the room. Okay there was self-loving, Dom was here, but you get my point.
Dom had finally started a conversation with James, she was sat on the stool next to his bed and even though I couldn't make out what they were saying, they seemed to be getting on pretty well after minimal contact for 2 years. James' younger siblings Albus and Lily were anti-socially sat in the corner; Lily was the typical teenage girl; chewing gum, tapping her feet, headphones on and eyes glued to her phone.
Considering for centuries wizards continually tried to distance themselves from the muggle world, and less than 30 years ago there was a major wizarding war based around a psychopath who wanted to kill all muggles and all those connected to muggles, we were pretty dependent on muggle devices such as mobile phones and televisions. Talk about hypocritical.
There's a spider on the wall, yuck! Hygiene was seriously going downhill in this hospital. They move in strange ways spiders do, you never know whether they're walking forwards, backwards or sideways. Eights legs is just too many to keep account of. Up. Left. Right. Up. Down. Or maybe it was down. Right. Left. Down. Up. Who knows?
Deciding the spider had been given enough of my attention I turned back to the room but it wasn't how I left it, for the second time in an hour all eyes were on me.
"We've established I'm pretty much in my pyjamas, please don't stare at me."
"I was asking you about James' leg sweetie." Ginny smiled. I didn't know whether to feel welcomed or patronised by her. Her smile was all warm and friendly, but I wasn't 100% sure of her yet.
"Oh, right. What d'you want to know?"
"I was just wondering the general idea of how long he'd be here."
"Right, well, okay, right. Well the skell-o-grow should take two more days to re-grow his tibia, and considering he hasn't had an allergic reaction to it he should be fine by then. There are rare cases when the skell-o-grow goes a bit funny, it makes no sense really it does nothing to the health of the patient really nor can they feel any difference it just means he'd have to stay an extra day or two and have a healer go round his house to check up on him every day for a month or two."
They all looked at me concerned for a second, before I turned my attention to James; he was looking a bit peaky as his mother pointed out "Don't worry James she said it doesn't really make any difference if that did happen."
"I think he's more worried about the idea of me coming to his house every day for two months." I laughed, before realising I was the only one who would understand my joke and disguised it into a well transitioned cough. "Right Dom, I'm gonna have to go, I have a tonne of paper work. No thanks to you." I added turning my attention to James. I really felt like hurling some subtle sarcastic abuse at him, but in the presence of his family, I refrained myself to a smirk and a hair flick before bidding goodnight.
"Leg any better today Mr Potter?" I asked as I pushed through his bedroom door, my hands full of clipboards, coffee mugs and the pen that was previously balanced precariously behind my ear.
"I'm not sure, didn't really feel like squeezing my leg to see if there was a bone there." He replied, adding a more defined out take of breath to show some form of humour.
"I suppose that's my job isn't it."
"Don't squeeze my leg to check for bones." He snapped moving away looking alarmed at my suggestion.
"Calm down love, I wasn't going to. You can get me sacked, however if you hadn't become such a big shot with a tonne of money I would have happily put you through the pain." I said coldly grinding my teeth as I put the clipboard on the edge of his bed. "Your family are a lovely bunch aren't they?"
"I never knew you lived with Dom."
"I didn't expect you to keep tabs on me once we left school, so I'm not surprised."
"I also didn't know you were a Chudley Cannons fan." He smirked. As you can probably guess James was a chaser for the Chudley Cannons, and since last year he's been on the England quidditch team. So you'll understand the press being here yesterday. They would have been even if he worked in a pub none the less, being the saviour of the world's son and all that.
"Mmhmm." I cast an X-ray charm on his leg before he could carry on the conversation inspecting his growing bones. "You should be able to go home in 2 days, as I expected."
"And will you be visiting me every day?"
"I won't know that until the bone is fully grown Potter, but keep your fingers crossed."
"I can see you still hate Me." he burst out surprising me, that wasn't what I expected from James Potter, I never even knew he took notice that I wasn't his biggest fan throughout school.
"Hate's a strong word Potter."
"So you do."
"No, I'm not a child any more James. But I don't like you, which I can guarantee will never change." I shook my head at his idiotic questions before changing the subject. "So how is the care at the hospital treating your high standards? It's a compulsory questionnaire." I added at his stern looks.
"Fine, My healers a bit of a bitch, but the foods nice." His stare didn't move from my eyes, nor did mine from his as I fired the questions at him, my tone and his answers both accompanied by sly digs at the victim of words. I could feel my eyes beginning to sting but I refused to drop my glare first.
"You better not be causing any more discomfort for patients Miss Tuck, do you know how long it took me to write apologetic letters to all the complaints last month?" I didn't look at her I still wanted to keep my stare on Potter.
I rewarded myself with a miniature, subconscious celebratory dance as Potter's eyes moved away from mine, obviously it wasn't for another 30seconds until I realised he stopped staring to laugh at me.
"Okay, that doesn't surprise me; the fact that you're a healer surprised the hell out of me, but the complaints – nuh huh that makes sense." He laughed.
Cocky bastard. I really didn't like him.
"You know Miss Tuck?" Healer Cassidy questioned at James' outburst.
"Of course I do, we were best friends through Hogwarts." I felt my nostrils automatically flare as I turned to face him my eyes widened and my jaw dropped. What the fuck was he on? I'm sure the potions we used didn't make patients delusional – I should send for a drug test, all the sporting people of the world were on drugs now-a-days.
"Cassidy my love, I believe I have to examine Potter's head. He's delusional, delayed concussion is my prognosis." I added before she got the idea we were friends. No, no, no.
The boss merely shook her head and headed out of the room. "It's Mr Potter to you Emma, friends or not, you're working." And she left.
The second she left the room, I childishly stuck up two fingers in her direction and scrunched my face up. "Wanker." I huffed before turning back to James and pulling my coat down to show I was professional, which was true. When I wanted to be.
"We're not friends Potter, as you pointed out. I don't like you."
"We'll see about that." He chuckled. I just flared my nostrils and pursed my lips, staring him down with a frown.