Author's note: Hey, everyone! Welcome to my third story in the Callie Warbeck series. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my writing, this is a threequel to my previous stories, The Only Slytherin and The Two Potions Masters (I've included links below if you're interested in checking them out). For my regular readers, I hadn't been planning to do a third story until recently, but I wanted to explore more of what was established in The Two Potions Masters. So updates might come a bit slowly, because I only have a rough outline for how this is going to go. With that said, I hope you enjoy part three of Callie's story :)

Disclaimer: If a character isn't mentioned in the Harry Potter series, then I made them up. Otherwise, JK Rowling owns them all.

Link to The Only Slytherin: s/14049215/1/The-Only-Slytherin

Link to The Two Potions Masters: s/14099462/1/The-Two-Potions-Masters

1. A Day in the Life of a Trainee Healer

"Fornicatur traducitur. The scientific name for the bacterium that causes what is commonly known as lacrimentula. Can anybody tell me what that is?"

Nobody in the Disease-Causing Magi-Microbes class had an answer for their lecturer, Healer Gavin Cypress, so he explained, "The most commonly diagnosed of sexually-transmitted infections among wizards and witches. Studies suggest that one in twenty sexually active persons between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four in wizarding Britain are infected."

Bloody hell, Callie thought. Up until now, she'd never even heard of any sexually-transmitted magical diseases. They ought to have a sex education course at Hogwarts. Jotting down the statistics, she made a mental note to speak to McGonagall about such an idea.

Cypress went on, "Primarily affecting the genitals, of course, F. traducitur is a flesh-eating bacterium." As soon as he said this, several people groaned in horror and disgust. "Symptoms include a prickling pain in the affected area-" somebody snorted at his use of the term prickling "-open sores, and standard inflammatory manifestations - redness, swelling, and heat. If left untreated, progressive tissue death results, often accompanied by insanity in the worst of cases."

Beside Callie, Manda Whittenburg - who'd been one her students back at Hogwarts and was now her classmate - asked, "Insanity? Why?"

"Well..." Cypress replied with a smirk, "the sufferer is simply driven mad by the sight of what's become of their nether regions."

As they walked out of class twenty minutes later, Connor Nyx - another of Callie's fellow first-years - remarked, "Flesh-eating penile bacteria. I am never having sex." Realizing what he'd just revealed about himself, he added with a reddened face, "Again."

Callie and Manda exchanged a glance, the both of them struggling to suppress a smirk. "Condoms, Connor," Callie said. "Remember that contraceptive potions do nothing to prevent your knick-knack from shriveling up and falling off."

The former potions mistress had been in healer training for a little over a month, and was beginning to become accustomed to her new routine. Five days a week she had classes from eight am to five pm, plus two hours of clinical shadowing every other day. In addition to that, it was expected of trainees to spend at least as much time on homework and studying as they spent in class. Liam Winslow hadn't been playing around when he'd told Callie her whole life would revolve around healing.

But she didn't mind that. On the contrary, she loved it.

Following the Magi-Microbes lecture, she, Manda, Connor, and fellow classmate Oscar Sheffield - who they all referred to as "Sheff" - gathered in the hospital library to work on their latest assignment: researching lacrimentula and writing up a 1,000-word essay on the methods of treating it.

"Stages one and two simply require administration of a bactericidal potion," Manda read from a text on magical STIs. "Stage three is when the flesh begins to necrotize. At that point, skin regenerating potions or spells are standard."

"And stage four is characterized by irreversible damage to the genitalia," Callie said. "The bacteria have typically become resistant to potion-based treatments, and skin regeneration is essentially useless, since the bacteria remain and continue to eat away at the regenerated tissue."

With a look of disbelief, Connor practically shouted, "Who would let it get that far?!"

"Self-proclaimed 'home-healers,'" Sheff replied, "who think they know better than people that have trained for seven years. I once got a call for an old lass who thought she could clear up her spattergroit by rubbing egg white and rosemary all over herself." Before joining the healer program, Sheff had spent twelve years working as a mediwizard. "Six months she'd been treating herself. By the time we showed up, she was unrecognizable as a human."

"Ugh," Connor groaned.

Checking her watch, Callie asked, "Eh - anybody have shadow work tonight?"

"I do," Manda said. "In the Spell Damage Department with Healer Gold." The same Healer Gold who'd been one of Callie's healers when she was splinched.

"One of the best, he is," Callie remarked. "I'm on Potion and Plant Poisonings with Crane."

To that, Sheff scoffed and said, "Good luck with that. Crane's an arsehole."

She had yet to meet this particular healer. "How so?"

It was Manda who explained, "He absolutely hates trainees. Especially first-years. If he acknowledges your presence at all, it'll be to say 'get the hell out of my way' or complain about how useless you are."

Callie pondered that. To be fair, first- and second-years really were useless when it came to actual patient care. They were only there to observe, and couldn't even touch a patient, while the attending healer and a senior trainee did all the work. Ideally, one or the other would answer questions or explain the details of the case to the junior trainee, but there were those who preferred their shadows to simply stand back and shut up.

Following her hour-long post-lecture break, Callie headed up to the Poisonings Department, where she was greeted by a sixth-year named Ruby Lennox. "We've got a bad case of unknown origin in the Claudius de Melker Ward," Ruby informed her. The Claudius de Melker Ward housed patients for whom a proper cure had not yet been found.

Ruby went on, "He was admitted two weeks ago and he's gotten progressively worse. Symptoms include skin discoloration, extreme lethargy, weight loss, and confusion. He couldn't tell us what the toxin might have been, couldn't recall any recent bites or interaction with poisonous species. No suspicious persons handling his drinks or food. Healer Crane has tried damn-near every antidote we have on hand, and even a few specialty elixirs. But nothing's worked."

As they headed to the patient's room, Callie asked, "So what's his plan?"

Shaking her head slightly, Ruby replied, "Honestly? I think he's running out of ideas."

Stepping into the room, they found the patient lying barely conscious in bed, while a tall man of seventy-something stood reading off his chart.

"Healer Crane," Ruby spoke. Gesturing to the younger woman at her side, "This is Callie Warbeck, Year One."

The white-haired and bearded man looked over at Callie, studying her with a rather unfriendly expression. In spite of that, she offered him a smile and said, "Good to meet you, sir," extending her hand for a shake.

He left her hanging, but kept his pale grey eyes on hers. "Callie Warbeck," he spoke in a low, flat voice. "Wish you would've given me a heads-up, Lennox. I'd have rolled out a red carpet."

There was a beat of awkward silence, before Callie said, "I'm sorry?"

"Oh, I've heard all about you, lass." He set the chart down and folded his arms across his chest. "Creator of the Anti-Cruciatus Potion, first ever to counter the Torture Curse. Quite a résumé you have."

Despite his words, he didn't seem very impressed. Still, Callie replied, "Thank you, sir."

He pursed his lips before continuing, "I imagine you think quite highly of yourself."

She hesitated for a moment, before declaring, "Yes, actually, I do." It was apparent, however, that he did not hold a similarly positive opinion of her.

"Healers Amaranth, Gold, Winslow... they've all been singing your praises. And what with that inventive mind of yours, I was wondering if you might be just the person to crack the case of Mr. Ellerbee." He gestured to the patient, who was greenish and skeletal and didn't seem to have any awareness of what was going on around him.

Callie recognized that Crane was attempting to put her in her place; to show her that she wasn't anything particularly special, in spite of her achievements with the vaccine and the Cruciatus shield. But she hadn't needed any humbling. In the field of healing, she was just as inexperienced and uneducated as any other first-year, and she wouldn't argue otherwise.

"Sir," she said, "if somebody with your expertise hasn't figured it out, then I certainly don't expect to have a chance of doing so."

He kept his eyes on her as he considered that. "So it appears that despite your groundbreaking achievements in the fields of potion- and spell-crafting, you're just as useless as your less-accomplished classmates."

There it is, Callie thought, recalling Sheff and Manda's remarks about the man. At least she could take solace in the fact that his disdain for her wasn't personal.

"Let us remedy that, shall we?" Crane went on. Reaching into his lime-green robes, he ordered, "Go up to the tearoom. Bring me a cup of coffee, black." He tossed her a coin pouch, then turned his back to her without another word.

I'm supposed to be observing you - not running errands. But she knew there'd be no point in arguing with him, and set off to the fifth floor.

When she returned with his order, he didn't bother looking at her as he asked, "What took you so long?"

Taken aback, Callie stammered, "I... I was only gone for five minutes. I had to go up two floors, remember."

"Tell me you didn't actually use the stairs when you could have apparated."

She had no response to that. Truthfully, the idea hadn't crossed her mind.

The only positive regarding the rest of her shift was that Crane didn't send her away on anymore inane personal errands. But he certainly didn't warm up to her at all. She did her best to remain invisible as he and Ruby worked, standing with her back against the wall and keeping quiet. But apparently, that had been the wrong move.

As Crane examined a new patient presenting with little spiny protrusions on his back, he called out, "You're supposed to be observing, Warbeck. Are you going to come and have a look, or would you prefer to stand there wasting air and space?"

Hesitantly, she approached the healer, looking over his shoulder and crouching down a bit to get a decent view. But that was wrong, too.

"Must you stand so close that I can feel you breathing down my neck?" Crane asked. "If you're really that near-sighted, I suggest obtaining a pair of glasses."

Once her shift was up, she was more than happy to be done with him. Before heading home for the night, she stopped by Liam Winslow's office for a cup of tea and a chance to vent.

"He is by far the worst I've shadowed," she declared. "I couldn't seem to do literally anything right in his eyes."

"Well," Liam said, "the good news is that nobody else is quite as unpleasant as Crane. The rule of thumb for first-years is that if you can get through your first shift with him without crying, the rest will be smooth sailing."

"What's his problem?" Callie asked. "Why's he such a bell-end?"

Liam snorted and replied, "Some people are just like that. You learn not to read too deeply into it."

Callie pondered that, and after a moment she remarked, "He's just so... familiar."

Furrowing his brow, Liam asked, "How do you mean?"

With a slight smile, she explained, "Ill-natured, haughty, contemptuous..." The similarities in personality were uncanny. Hell, he even specialized in potions. After a beat, she concluded, "He's Severus Snape."

Ten minutes later, she went outside to an alley behind the hospital with the intention of disapparating home, but something was holding her back. It was Crane's voice echoing in her head: "You might be just the person to crack the case of Mr. Ellerbee."

Probably not, she admitted to herself. But it wouldn't hurt to try. She just didn't feel right going home when the Ellerbee case was still unsolved. Heading back inside and returning to the library, she thought, If nothing else, this is a learning opportunity. That's what I'm here for, after all.

And so she spent the next several hours going over textbooks and journal articles, attempting to match the patient's symptoms with those of every obscure poisoning that had been reported in the last ten, twenty, thirty years. When that led to nothing, she started looking into antidotes.

"I suppose they've already tried a bezoar," she mumbled to herself. "This has to be something novel." She didn't like the man, but Healer Crane was an expert in poisonings, with a good fifty years of experience. If he hadn't yet seen a case like Mr. Ellerbee's, then perhaps no one had. Thus, a curative potion for this specific poisoning likely didn't exist. With the poor, sickly patient in mind, she spoke aloud, "What happened to you?"

It was approaching midnight when, surrounded by books and with nothing to show for nearly four hours of research, her frustration was becoming overwhelming. "Bloody hell," she groaned, snapping shut the latest text that had provided no answers and burying her face in her hands.

After a moment, she heard a familiar voice call out, "You're still here?" and looked up to find Crane standing a few yards away.

Leaning back in her seat with a tired expression, she explained, "I've been trying to find something useful for the Ellerbee case. No such luck."

Approaching her, he asked, "Do you really believe that I haven't been through every text on poisonings contained in this library? As well as my own personal collection?"

Hesitantly, she replied, "Well... I wanted to look for myself. Wasn't completely for naught, I guess. Think I've learned more on the subject in the last few hours that I will over the next seven years."

As she began to gather up her mess of books, Crane studied her before taking a seat on the other side of the table. "Ellerbee passed an hour ago," he announced.

Callie froze, her heart sinking as she gaped at him. Overcome with defeat, she shut her eyes and mumbled, "Son of a bitch."

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, and then Crane, looking over a pad of notes that Callie had taken down, remarked, "Pitiful thing, you are. Almost feel sorry for you."

Rolling her eyes in irritation, she asked, "What's to feel sorry about, sir?"

Gesturing over the table of books and notes, he said, "You were looking to show yourself as the brilliant first-year who cracks an impossible case and comes out a big hero. Am I correct in that assumption?"

Glowering at him, she replied, "No, sir - I was looking to help cure a patient." She stood up and began to replace the books to their shelves. "I'm not here to impress anyone - I'm here to learn."

"Well then you've just discovered one of the fundamental tenets of the healing profession," he said. "That despite our best efforts, there are times in which we fail to provide that life-saving potion or counter-curse."

"Yes - I know that," she replied bitterly. Even so, this had been her first experience of a patient's death, and she couldn't deny that it was difficult to brush it aside and remain impassive. And turning back to the old, contemptuous healer, she noted that even he wore an expression of defeat. In a quiet voice, she asked, "Does it get easier as time goes on? Do you get used to having people die while under your care?"

"I wouldn't say you get used to it. You simply grow numb." After a beat, he added, "You have to. Otherwise, nobody could stand that particular brand of failure day after day, year after year."

Callie stood gazing at the man, thinking, You haven't gone completely numb. Liam was wrong; people weren't "just like that." There'd been a reason why Snape was so unpleasant, and there was a reason why Crane was, too. "You don't like being a healer, do you?" she guessed.

He sat in quiet contemplation for a moment, then said, "Tell me if you still find joy in the profession after your thousandth time informing someone that their spouse or their parent or their child is dying. And while they've put all their hopes into you to make them well, there's nothing more that can be done." He paused, a sorrowful look coming over him. "We're not always heroes, Warbeck. Oftentimes we're messengers of doom."

It was a sobering thought, but Callie said, "Don't act as though the people we are able to heal are insignificant, sir. Being a hero to one makes a hell of an impact."

"Hmph," he smirked. "You're one of those infuriating cock-eyed optimists, aren't you?"

"Not really. But how can you not find a sense of joy in the knowledge that somebody, right now, is out there living a life that you gave them? For every Ellerbee, there are a hundred others who can be saved. The spouse or the parent or child that lived, because we made it so." Pondering the idea, she added, "I can't think of anything more fulfilling than that."

He didn't seem particularly uplifted by her words, and after a moment, he simply checked his watch and said, "It's past midnight. Go home, Warbeck. You'll be even more useless than you already are if you're dead on your feet in the morning."

She had to suppress a smirk as she thought, So much like Snape. "You don't like me very much, sir," she remarked. "Obviously. But I have a way with people like you. Soon enough you're going to find you appreciate me a bit."

As she grabbed up her backpack and threw it over her shoulder, he replied, "I highly doubt that."

Making her way out, a cocky little smile curled her lip as she muttered to herself, "We'll see."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

When Callie appeared on the front steps outside her cottage in Hogsmeade, she could hear the faint sound of a dreamy, soothing melody coming from inside. With a smile on her face, she headed in and found Snape sitting at the piano with his back to her. Though he must've heard her come in, he continued with his song, and for a moment Callie stood in silence, listening to him play.

In the seven weeks that she'd been residing in the village, there had only been a handful of occasions in which she hadn't come home to find him waiting for her. As one of the heads of house at Hogwarts, he'd had to spend more time at the castle since the start of term. But despite the fact that he still retained his private quarters in the dungeons, he almost never slept there anymore. And without having made any official decision to do so, he and Callie were practically living together. Or at least, "playing house."

Presently, she came up from behind and wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder as he went on with the gentle tune. "Dinner was already on the table when I received your Patronus at eight," he informed her. What with her lack of skills in the kitchen, he often took it upon himself to cook for the woman.

"I'm sorry," she said, pulling his hair aside to plant a kiss at his neck. "Shadowed in the Poisonings Department. Had a bloke that was a real mystery. The head healer couldn't determine what had gotten him and no antidotes had been effective." She paused, sighed to herself, and went on, "So I've been in the library the last four hours. I was going to be the brilliant first-year that cracks an impossible case and comes out a big hero." After a beat, she concluded, "I didn't. Poor bloke ended up dying."

At that, Snape brought the song to an end and turned to face her, taking her hand and brushing his thumb over the back of it. With sympathy in his eyes, he said in a quiet voice, "I'm sorry."

She gave him a small, appreciate smile, then set her hands on his shoulders and straddled his lap. "Anyway... how was your day?"

Lacing his fingers behind her back, he replied, "Had a fifth-year lecture on vampires. There's a rumor going around that the former potions mistress had a torrid love affair with one. Somebody asked me if I knew anything about that."

She wouldn't exactly have described it as torrid, but of course, the rumor was true. With a slight grin, she asked, "And what did you tell them?"

"Detention with Filch for wasting my time with such inane queries."

"Hmph," she huffed. Same old contemptuous git, he was. But at least he'd pawned the sorry fifth-year off on someone else, so as not to take any of his time away from her.

Running his fingers over her cheekbone, he asked, "Have you eaten anything? I made a plate for you."

With a wide smile, she remarked, "Oh, how I love having a househusband." Then her expression turned a bit guilty. "But I loaded up on biscuits from the teashop."

A look of mild vexation came over him. "So my efforts were for naught, then," he said.

"Save it for the morning. We'll do breakfast in bed." She leaned forward to put her lips at his throat, murmuring between kisses, "Light a few candles, make up for the romantic dinner I missed..." Pulling back to meet his eye, she asked, "How does that sound, Professor?" and shot him a kittenish wink.

The corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smirk as he buried his fingers in her hair and admired her. "I can think of much better things that we could do in bed," he whispered in that deliciously silky voice of his. Whenever he spoke like that, she became putty in his hands, and as he brought her close to take her bottom lip between his own, she thought, Why wait until morning?

He answered that question himself, however, when he broke the kiss and said, "But I'll need you well-rested. You've got circles under your eyes."

Her shoulders sank in disappointment; the man was too damn mindful of when she was overstretching herself. Often he would chide her for staying up until all hours of the night studying, or for skipping meals throughout the day in order to complete this assignment or that. And now, apparently, his concern for her well-being was great enough that he was willing to forgo sex in order to ensure she got a good night's sleep.

What a bastard, she thought to herself.

He nudged her off of him and started towards the staircase. But she remained in place, calling out, "I'm not too tired for that special thing you do," and bringing him to a halt. When he turned back to meet her eye, a devilish grin curled her lip as she thought, I've had a tough day. Give me what I want.

He just couldn't say no to her. After a moment's hesitation, he approached her slowly, his eyes locked with hers all the while. Coming to a stop mere inches away, he drew his wand and aimed it off to the side, where the record player stood. In the next second, the cheerful tune of She's a Rainbow rang out, and Callie smiled in delight as Snape lifted her arm and twirled her around in a circle.

It was a very rare occasion that he would dance with her. The first time had been after their success with the vaccine on Sir Camembert. The second was when she'd come home after her first day of classes at the hospital. Now this was the third.

He's warming up to it, she thought, uncontainable joy on her face as he held her close and led her around the room. As a child, she had never been one for playing house, but nowadays she found the game was rather fun.