It was only her third week on the job, and healer apprentice Janice Whistlethorpe was being trusted to do her work on her own for the first time. As she began her shift, she checked the daily schedule posted on the staff room wall as she'd been taught. "Oh, dear. I'm to inventory the cadaverum again. I hate that job!" Latin for "dead bodies", the task was unpleasant but necessary. The hospital administration did not want to keep the remains of deceased patients on premises any longer than it took to transfer them to the mortician of the departed's family's choice. The daily inventory to check the tags on the feet of the corpses insured that they were handled in a timely fashion.
Making her way through the halls of Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, she soon reached the stairs down to the basement room where the morgue was located. As she descended, she whispered to herself, "It's okay. They are dead and long past doing any harm. I can do this."
Entering the room, she saw that only three of the tables in the room had occupants. Approaching the nearest of the sheet-shrouded figures, she flipped up a corner of the covering to expose its right foot, searching for the information kept on a card tied to its big toe. Not seeing the expected card, she moved to raise the covering from its left foot, thinking that the orderly might have tied it on the wrong side. The sleeve of her lime-green healer's robe brushed against the exposed foot, and to her utter terror, it twitched.
"Aaah! It's an inferius! Call the aurors!" Her scream could be heard all the way up on the first floor as she hiked up her robe and ran for dear life. As she made a beeline for the nearest exit, a stray thought floated in the back of her mind. 'Never again! I don't care how necessary the job is, I'm never going down there again!'
Meanwhile, back in the morgue, the figure on the table rose to a sitting position. As the sheet fell to pool around its waist, a man in midlife was revealed, also wearing the green healer's robe. "Bugger it. There goes another hiding place for napping shot to hell. I just can't get a break around here," said Healer Sanatorus Brown ruefully.
The Saint Mungo's Welcome Witch was filing her nails when the fire in the small communications floo on a corner of her desk flared to life and a chime sounded. She set down her file and snarled in her most charming voice, "Saint Mungo's. Whaddaya want?"
A man's face appeared in the flames, and asked, "Hello. I'd like to know the status of Aloysius Trent, please. He's in the emergency ward, in bed number six, I believe. I'd like to know if he is responding well to treatment."
The witch reached into a desk drawer for a sheet of parchment and picked up her quill as she grumbled, "Okay, okay. Keep yer shirt on, and I'll send off a memo to ask for ya."
She jotted down a note asking for the patient's current progress, folded it into a glider shape, and with a heave, sent it skimming through the air down the corridor to the emergency ward. Several minutes later, another glider arrowed its way to her desk, and came to a landing in the center of her desk. She unfolded it and examined the parchment, puzzling out the rather poor handwriting. After a moment of deciphering, she turned to the floo again.
"I got yer answer. Seems 'is tests all look good, and 'e's responding well to the potions regimen 'ealer Brown has 'im on. If 'e continues to improve, Brown's gonna send 'im 'ome tomorrow roundabouts midday."
"Oh, that's brilliant! I'm so pleased to hear the news. It really is fantastic, thank you."
"Yeah, yeah. Thanks fer callin' Saint Mungo's," the witch growled as she abruptly terminated the floo connection. "Stupid git."
In the emergency ward, Aloysius Trent leaned back in his bed from the portable floo set up next to it, a relieved smile on his face. The man in the bed next to his was puzzled, and asked him, "Why did you go through all that, then? Shouldn't you just have asked the duty healer if you wanted to know what's going on with your treatment?"
"You must not have been here before. Believe me, mate, this is the only way to find out what's going on. Nobody in here ever tells patients anything!"