Exploding Chocolates
"I'm here to see Healer Park," I said to the vacant-eyed receptionist sitting at the pristine white desk in St. Mungo's main lobby. It was the same receptionist who'd been there when I'd been taking lessons from Healer Park over the summer. Behind me the Potter spawn shifted impatiently, sighing at regular intervals to show his annoyance (WELL I'M SORRY YOU HAVE TO TOLERATE MY PRESENCE AL BUT I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOU TO BABYSIT ME).
The receptionist, a woman in her mid-thirties with sandy brown hair tied back with a pink hair elastic, kept glancing behind me at Al.
"Ignore the sulking boy, please," I said, looking up at the clock mounted on the cream wall behind her. If her schedule hadn't changed, Healer Park's lunch break would be ending in fourteen minutes and twenty-two seconds. After that I would have no hope of contacting her through the rush of patients (nor would I want to considering all the life-saving work she'd be busy doing).
She shot me a disgruntled look before sighing.
"Do you have an appointment?"
I hesitated; technically I didn't but…
She shook her head.
"No appointment, no visit."
"What? But I've visited here several times over the summer. Don't you remember me? Adela?"
Her brown eyes showed no sign of recognition. I tried again.
"The girl who accidentally overturned the vending machine?"
Her expression soured as she eyed me.
"Oh. You mean the girl who resulted in hours of unpaid overtime as I was put in charge of figuring out how to fix the holes in the floor that resulted from the exploding chocolates?"
Maybe identifying myself hadn't been the best idea.
Al stepped forward, flashing his oh-so-official badge.
"It's official Auror business, ma'am. We'd really appreciate if you let us up…discretely. You seem like a trustworthy person, so I'll let you know-" here he leaned in close, bringing with him his usual scent of mint and pine needles "that it's classified. I'm sure you understand." Stupid Slytherins. Charming bastards, the lot of them. It wasn't even official Auror business (not that I was going to protest).
The woman practically melted, straightening in her seat as her fingers flew across the scrolls of parchment lined neatly on her desk.
"Oh! Of course, of course. I'll locate her for you right away," she said, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of new gossip. She was surely wondering what trouble Healer Park was in. I shot a glare at Al; I didn't want her having to deal with unnecessary questions about an Auror visit.
Al turned to shoot me a self-satisfied grin before reassuming his innocent expression again when the woman looked up. My fingers twitched toward OBTS as I struggled to keep my temper down. It's for Daisy, I told myself. For…Daisy…my thoughts grew more strained as Al moved forward to look at the (supposedly classified – whatever happened to confidentiality?) parchment the woman was proudly showing him. Al scanned the parchment, not noticing that the woman was craning her neck to smell his shirt.
I forced myself to look away, instead studying the vending machine (hey, look, they'd bolted it to the ground!) at the corner of the waiting room.
When I finally turned back in impatience (ten minutes and sixteen seconds left), the woman was slipping a bit of parchment into Al's pocket and winking.
I resisted the urge to vomit.
As we moved away from the desk and stomped towards the stairs (well, I stomped. He just walked with that infuriatingly smug skip to his steps), I sighed, swallowed my pride, and said, "So where is she?"
"What? No thank you? She looked about ready to throw you out of the lobby before I intervened," he said lightly.
Without looking over at him, I reached over and moved to punch him in the arm. His hand intercepted the blow, and I looked over in surprise as his fingers curled over my palm.
The corner of his mouth twitched. "I like my arm unbruised," he said before letting go.
I scowled, looking away quickly before he could see the red (traitorous body) creeping up my cheeks. No. Do not fall for him again. No. No. No.
I increased my pace, surging ahead of him as I took the steps up two at a time.
"Oi! Lancaster!" came Al's echoing voice from a flight below.
I kept going, determinedly ignoring his stupid voice.
"She's in the basement!"
Oh. I looked upwards and sent a brief curse up to whatever deities were responsible for this wretched day.
I plodded my way down three steps before remembering that I was on a fixed schedule and fairly careening down the rest of the flights, rushing past Al and slamming through the double doors leading to the basement.
My feet slid on the polished white floor as I searched for Healer Park. I caught glimpses of patients with oddly coloured attachments and disfigurations as I sprinted past the various rooms, including one sporting antlers quite similar to the ones Fred Weasley had sprouted during the first Duel club meeting back in sixth year. I stifled a grin at the memory. I hadn't seen Fred in ages. The last I'd heard of him he was working at his dad's joke shop.
There! I caught a familiar flash of deep brown hair and pristine white robes.
"Healer Park! Healer Park!" I shouted. She looked up, her mouth in a silent "o" of surprise as I almost collided into her. The group of healers that she'd been talking to eyed me warily.
"Adela?" she finally managed, her brown eyes widening.
"Yeah, I need to ask you a few questions – do you have a minute?"
She glanced at the group of healers around her and said, "Of course." She set down her half-eaten sandwich beside her and looked at me expectantly.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm looking for a Muggle." Seeing her brows furrow, I hurriedly added, "Not for any bad reasons, but for a good reason. His name is old Ben and his daughter has some Muggle disease – I think it was cancer. Do you know if you could find him?"
She frowned.
"Adela, there are several different kinds of cancer and hundreds of cancer patients. That's just not enough information to go on…I'm sorry," she added, seeing my crestfallen expression.
No. This couldn't be where my journey ended. Numberita whirred frantically, struggling to come up with more leads.
"Wait! This is really important. A house elf's future rests on this. The daughter will probably still be in the hospital or recently departed. Her father's paying for her, so I doubt she has any other close relatives. Old Ben's in his mid to late eighties, so she should be middle aged, maybe early fifties considering the average age to father a child is thirty-one. Oh! And they're in London!"
She opened her mouth, a resigned expression in her dark eyes, before closing it again and sighing.
"Okay," she said wearily.
"Really?" I brightened.
"I'll try," she emphasized. I jumped forward and hugged her.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" I exclaimed. She rolled her eyes, but a smile pulled her lips up.
"You can blame my house for this," she joked. Healer Park was a Hufflepuff seven years ahead of me (in Black's year, actually).
"Oh, and Adela?" she added. I paused mid-celebration to look at her questioningly.
"For the last time, please just call me Elise," she said.
"No promises there, Heal-Elise," I said. She looked at something over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow.
Leaning in conspiratorially, she whispered, "A certain Potter is glowering at your back."
I groaned; he was probably annoyed that I'd left him behind to run through the basement alone.
"Right, I'd better go. Promise you'll owl me as soon as you find something out?" I asked. She nodded.
"Of co-"
A frazzled looking nurse in pale blue scrubs burst in, looking frantically around until her eyes settled on Healer P-Elise.
"Healer Park! Mystery guy is showing signs of activity!" she said between ragged gasps of breath.
Elise stiffened, her eyes widening. "And Healer Jacobs? Where is she?"
"On her lunch break. I know you're not the active healer for the patient, but you were the only one I could think of to notify."
"Of course, thank you – I'll be right there," Elise said distantly. I narrowed my eyes at her; was that a faint red to her cheeks? She bit her lip, casting me a frazzled look before looking down the hallway.
"Sorr – I've – I've got to-" and without another look back, she was gone, sprinting down the hallway. I stared after her in disbelief; never before had I seen the kind, gentle Elise run off in such a hurry. Who was this mystery guy?
"Huh," I said, almost to myself.
"Merlin, and I thought I couldn't get away from you fast enough."
I rolled my eyes (great. He was rubbing off on me) and turned.
"Is it just me or have you gotten a lot snarkier over the years?"
He pretended to think about it for a minute.
"Nope, just you," he said finally. I frowned, narrowing my eyes. Numberita worked for a bit, thinking of possible theories for this personality shift. Was it some sort of protection? Against what, though?
"Oi! I don't need you trying to analyze me," he snapped coldly, taking a step back. I stiffened, my head rearing back as if his words had physically struck me.
"I was doing no such thing," I responded with equal aloofness.
"Right," he said, flinging his hands in the air.
Red was starting to creep around the edges of my vision, staining the pristine hospital walls with scarlet rage.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" my voice was getting louder, and it was like I wasn't in my body – I was somewhere above, watching as two people argued deep within St. Mungo's.
"You always have to investigate a reason behind everything. You can't leave things be - it's not in your nature."
More yelling – my face was bright red. Al shouted something, and I responded in kind. My mouth was moving, but all I could feel was a deep, painful emptiness that ate eagerly at my insides. How had this gotten so bad? What day had it been when we both woke up and began to hate each other like this?
"-I didn't ask to be stuck babysitting some stuck up baby prone to immature tantrums!"
His words sliced through my daze, and suddenly the hallway was all too quiet.
A heavy fatigue settled over me, and I finally sighed, letting his words roll over me briefly before pushing the hurt away.
"Fine," I said quietly. Then I turned without a backward glance and began to walk calmly towards the stairwell. It was a wonder that no one had come running with all the noise we had made.
I heard muffled cursing from behind me, but no footsteps accompanied the words. Al didn't make a move to follow me. Fine. I didn't need him; I hadn't seen a single hair of a werewolf so far. Besides, even if I did, I was perfectly capable of defending myself. So, setting my shoulders determinedly, I pushed open the door and exited the hallway.
I had a Muggle to find.
xxxxxxxxx
Elise had seemed busy with mystery guy, so I decided to go ahead and investigate the hospitals myself. It turned out there were more than sixty hospitals in London. Which was bloody fantastic considering I had only three hours and two minutes until I had to update Cain. Luckily for me, I was a witch. I'd used a pinpointing spell to locate the hospitals that treated impoverished patients and then narrowed it down to those with oncology departments, leaving me with eighteen possible hospitals. It was still a substantial number, but it was certainly better than the previous one.
The problem was that even if I did somehow find the right hospital, I had no idea if old Ben's daughter was even still a patient or if she'd been discharged. Besides, I couldn't go around asking random people if they had a father named old Ben. I needed more information.
Which left me sitting on this park bench with my head in my hands as Numberita struggled to think of a solution. High, clear laughter filtered through the air as the children playing on the playground four meters in front of me clambered on the colourful plastic swings and slides. Late afternoon light filtered through the omnipresent clouds that hugged the gauzy sky, and the air had a slight bite to it, hinting at the cool autumn that was to come. A shriek sounded from over by the swings, followed quickly by giggling and the sound of little feet running on pavement.
I'd missed out on that part of my childhood. Seth and I had played around the manor, of course, but we'd never touched a Muggle playground. Father and Mother had always forbidden it. Speaking of which…I hadn't spoken to them since the Greyback incident. When days had passed without a single word of concern from them, I'd finally been fed up with this gaping void present between us that had originated because of a Hogwarts house. So I'd quietly broken off contact with them. Not that it had taken much effort to do so; we didn't really keep in touch anyway, so it wasn't a huge difference from before. I just no longer made any effort to placate them. Which, of course, led to my disinheriting at the end of seventh year. There'd been no warning of it, just an official gold-embossed roll of parchment that arrived with the morning rush of Daily Profits and other parcels.
Did I mind? Yeah, I'd like to lie and say of course not; I didn't care that my parents had broken me off as easily and simply as if they were discarding last year's dress. But that wasn't true. I groaned, nestling my head further in my heads. Well, as long as I was going to be here wallowing in self-pity…
All I needed was a pint (or two) of ice cream and I'd be set.
"Why the long face?" a voice said from a startlingly close (maybe only a half meter to my right) distance. It was low – a male – and there was an odd roughness to his words, a tilting accent that Numberita couldn't quite place.
I stiffened; what if it was a kidnapper? Then I remembered the wand I was clutching tightly underneath my jacket and relaxed slightly, my shoulders lowering. Right. I was a witch in a Muggle neighborhood. I was hardly defenseless.
"I don't talk to strangers," I said into my hands, the words muffled by my skin.
"Come on, you look like you need someone to talk to."
I hesitated, my head still firmly burrowed in my hands. After six seconds I sighed, tilting my head up to look at the sky.
It went against all of my Ravenclaw practicality, but screw it. Al had been right about one thing, even if I was loathe to admit it. Numberita never stopped. I loved my intellect, but sometimes it was exhausting to have a barrage of numbers popping up in everything I looked at. Maybe it was time to live on the edge a bit. Besides, I had a wand.
"Well, I need to find this Mu-person for a trial that's in sixty-tw..erm, around two months I mean, and I have no idea how to find him." The clouds were quite thick today. I caught myself calculating the chances of precipitation before I stopped myself, quickly focusing back on the conversation. I didn't look at my companion, choosing instead to keep him anonymous. That way it sort of felt more mysterious, like I was speaking to some all-knowing fragment of my conscious.
...
Maybe I have been reading too many mystery novels.
"A hot shot lawyer, then," my companion observed.
"Mmm," I said. "Though not much of a hot shot, really. I only recently got upgraded from coffee retriever to person locator."
He laughed, and I was surprised to feel a brief flutter in my stomach. I had no idea what he looked like, but his accent was very attractive. This guy was a bloody fantastic listener. Maybe I ought to spend more time with Muggles.
"Do you like your job at least?"
I crossed my legs, quietly observing the rustling leaves above for thirtee-a moment before responding.
"Honestly? I adore it. I feel like I finally have a chance to make a difference in the world, as clichéd as that may sound...of course, that makes it all the worse that I finally have a chance to change someone's life for the better but I'm failing because I can't find one person."
"I'm sure he'll turn up eventually. How many people are there in London, anyway?" he said half-jokingly. I opened my mouth, about to spout out the population - around 8 million - but quickly cut myself off.
I laughed a bit at myself before saying, "I can't believe I'm saying all this to a stranger."
A pause. Then-
"But I'm not a stranger."
Huh? I didn't recognize his voice at all. I finally looked at him, and Numberita quickly took notice of his features, my heart growing colder and colder as I stared at his face. Dark wavy hair, strong cheekbones, young, and eyes that were as dark as the deepest of nights. It was the bloke from Burke's! But what had happened to his voice? At Burke's he'd had a thick cockney accent. Now it sounded…Numberita finally placed his accent; Bulgarian. He smiled ruefully at the look of shocked recognition that flashed across my face.
"Do you always keep your wand underneath your jacket?" he continued casually.
I made to leap to my feet, but his hand quickly lashed out and pressed a thin, narrow object that was all too familiar to my side, hidden from passersby by the bulky material of my coat. I froze.
"Now, we were having such a nice conversation. Don't run away," he said lightly. When I made no move to return to my prior position, his voice darkened. "Sit."
I sat slowly, my heart beating loudly, the pulses resonating along my temples and ears. Come on, Numberita. Think! My wand was still stuck underneath my jacket; it would take at least three seconds for me to get it out into the ready position, and by then…I swallowed thickly. By then he'd have had all the time in the world to unleash a torrent of offensive curses.
"What do you want?" I asked hoarsely. He shrugged, not moving his wand.
"You are not an Auror. What were you doing in my flat?"
Author Note: Uh oh. Adela's not in the greatest of situations. Anyway, thanks for reading/reviewing/etc! :D I really appreciate it! :) It seems like the general consensus was in favor of updating on Fridays, so I'm trying it out to see how it goes :) as for review replies, i've decided to continue my PM system (otherwise the chapter lengths would be far too long!). Thanks to everyone who voted - on a side note, OQaS is three reviews away from 600 reviews! That's insane. When I first decided to make this plot bunny into fanfic, I never expected such a response - so you all have my unending thanks for your support! It really means so much to me c:
ALSO - AH I'M ALMOST AT TWO HUNDRED REVIEWS FOR OCAT. THAT'S AMAZING - THANK YOU! As a reward/to express my gratitude, I've decided to give the 200th reviewer a gift fic c;
Guest Review Replies
anon - Friday it is! ;D Thanks for reading! :)
Ann O'Nymus - oh gosh the puns never stop. I adore your names - they're so funny! && ergh i'm sorry you had those scones - that must have been horrible. && about al...ahh please forgive me for this chapter then (i swear he'll be better later! hopefully!) AJGDAKLGJDASGJ; you are epic thanks for your wonderful review! :D