Author's Note:

From this chapter onwards, you'll figure out why I tagged this story with 'fantasy medical mystery'. I consulted with my sister on the details, but any remaining mistakes are mine rather than hers.

FFNet's alert was a bit wonky last week; I didn't get any alerts on favs, follows and reviews until the 22nd—that would be last Thursday. So, in case you didn't see any alert on new chapter next weekend, try checking the site and the story's page directly.

'-

16 Mobilisations and Responses

The smell of fear in the morning. A scene from the Slytherin common room. Hermione goes to the infirmary. There are guests. Shanghaied!

'-

Tom Riddle moved through his common room with the ease of a shark swimming through the water. Where the slightest swirl of blood can trigger a shark's frenzy, for Tom, it was the levels of fear he could almost feel thrumming over his skin as his gaze flicked from one student to another. That hunched shoulder, the posture of someone curled into himself—anxiety, emotional pain. Grief? Possibly. A student was wringing her hands as she talked to her friends. One was solicitous with her hand on her arm, the other was holding a handkerchief for herself.

The room was so high with fear and Tom held back his smile. He loved the smell of fear in the morning. Fear was opportunity. The fearful masses looked up to a strong leader to save them.

A second year outright crying—

He altered his path casually and stopped in front of the girl.

"What's the matter?"

"It's my mother. She works at the Ministry and—and—and I don't know—"

She wailed. Tom patted her shoulder while he deftly looked out for another female present. There was someone he would rather not interact with for any extended period, but needs must and all that.

"Miss Avery, I'm sure you can help Miss…" he gazed down, and her garbled muttering of her name managed to jog his memory. "Miss Spavin here with her mother."

Thin, with a highly polished façade, Jemima Avery was the last thing on earth that was motherly. Still, she wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to talk to him. She smiled, showcasing pearl-white teeth behind painted lips.

"Of course, Tom."

Tom gave her a perfunctory nod and walked away, always keeping at least two paces between them. Last year, she'd 'accidentally tripped' when he was walking past her and she clung to him like a howler monkey until he carefully unpeeled her fingers from his self. He preferred to never repeat it. She didn't seem to have enough intelligence to actually learn from just the first or second application of the Cruciatus Curse, and he really wasn't in the mood to spend the time needed to break her and train her.

There were more interesting and important things to do.

She swayed a little too far to the right at one point and seemed puzzled to have encountered nothing, but Tom had long since passed her.

"Tom," a long-faced seventh-year greeted him and made no move to walk away. He was actually rather thin and non-descript, but there was a purpose to his movements today.

"Oswin," he greeted back with furrowed brows.

He remembered there was no unfinished business between them. As for Oswin, his family were the Orpingtons. Career bureaucrats to the bone, there was always at least one Orpington in the Ministry of Magic at any one time.

"We have a developing situation at the Ministry. We need to respond to the emergency." Oswin said.

Ah, we have the source of fear now.

"Gather everyone from the sixths and sevenths then."

Oswin nodded. "I'll set the meeting at breakfast."

"Tom, I think you need to see this." Another voice called out to him.

It was Abraxas, running into the common room from the outside, the Daily Prophet in his hand. "The Ministry of Magic has been attacked by Grindelwald. You know what the craziest thing is? He brought muggles, Tom, muggles!"

Silence fell over the room before it exploded as everyone tried to speak up at once. It was only Tom's cracking of a fire-whip towards the ceiling that quieted the room. He released the spell from the end of his wand.

"Thank you, Abraxas, for actually inducing panic in the common room," Tom's smile did not waver, but Abraxas blushed to the roots of his hair all the same. The few of Tom's fellow fifth years that had come to stand by him had to hold back the urge to step back as they felt a distinct chill running through the air. He turned to the crowd that was now hanging at his every word.

"Now, the first thing you need to know is that you're safe here. There is scarce any other place safer than Hogwarts." He repeated almost word-for-word the lines he'd told Dippet a week ago. There was a strange kind of irony to it.

Orpington's partner, the seventh-year prefect Emma Eccleston, had stood next to him with some information of her own and they were comparing notes in low voices.

"We have no idea how bad the situation is, but—" Tom raised a hand to forestall the questions, "but that is merely a temporary situation. We'll find out more as the news are updated and we of Slytherin House will support each other. We have people whose parents and relatives are in the Ministry and who may have contacted them last night and may have news. Some of these are Messieurs Orpington and Montmorency over there along with Miss Eccleston—please do not rush them."

There didn't seem to be a change in his tone, it was still as polite and level as before, but there was a snap of something in the air stopping them from mobbing the three seventh and sixth years.

"They will confer with others who may also know, and they will make a list. After breakfast, they will either put up a list in a roll of parchment on the common room noticeboard, or you may ask them if the list is still unfinished then."

He took a deep breath.

"As for now, we will go to the hall for breakfast and we will not let Grindelwald scare us. We are wizards. We are witches. We can all cast a spell at the flick of our wands, can't we? We can summon fires, call up shields and conjure beasts? What do we have to fear?" Tom asked, his smile seemed to draw in the audience and they soon find themselves nodding if not outright answering his question to themselves.

"Each of us with a clear mind can defend ourselves well. Panic, and you might as well lose your head."

He paused to let this sink into everyone's mind. He could see postures straightening and tremors easing up. Shoulders wound down and wands were no longer held in such a tight grip.

"Now, let us descend upon the Great Hall with our heads held high. We will show the difference between Slytherin House and everyone else." Tom said this with such confidence that they couldn't help but believe in it too.

"Slytherin! Slytherin!"

There was a rousing cheer at that. It was noticeably started by the usually unassuming Melchior Nott before it was picked up by Fintan Gambol and Humbert Jape at some unseen sign of Orion's. The crowd was sufficiently fired up to follow on its own after that and predictably spread it to everyone. Tom stood to the side along with Orpington, Eccleston and Montmorency—the other two Slytherin prefects had also appeared alongside them. One of them were unfortunately Jemima Avery, but one works with what one has. They took their turns to talk to any Slytherin who wanted to talk, who needed further assurances. Tom applied slightly more strategic selection to this activity than the other prefects as he was greeting members of notable houses.

"Good catch, Tom," Orion commented as he passed.

"Thank you, Orion."

Their knowing smirks could've easily been mirrors of one another before Orion continued on his way at the head of his own entourage; the younger Flint and Bulstrode near him, Gambol and Jape followed somewhat loosely behind as they picked up their pace to catch up.

Alphard Black (fifth-year Slytherin) on the other hand, was too enthusiastic in the way he pushed through the crowd and shouldered Tom in delight as he stood beside him. His hair looked as if he had been standing on a cliff and had it blown all over the place before he came in, though how it looked dashing instead of messy no one knows.

"Tom! We haven't seen you for a while what with Slughorn monopolising your time, but once we do, you're gentling the beast! Calming the masses!" Alphard crowed. It could be argued that his voice was powerful enough to carry to the whole common room. "That was a truly fantastic call to House unity!"

Tom's smile was slightly fixed. "Well, we all have our duties to perform."

"Nonsense! That was well beyond duty and you know it." He gave Tom a light pat to his back; it was still of significant force as he had inherited the big bones of the Crabbes from his mother. His smiles were entirely good-natured and easy.

As Alphard was the heir of a cadet branch of Blacks, Tom only took a deep breath with forbearance. Besides, the other Black heir truly bore his house members no ill-will for their success and was genuinely happy for them. Tom's success delighted him most, perhaps more so than if it had been his own. He was not a scheming young man. In a way, Tom could appreciate someone who was not complicated to read.

Abraxas who'd been standing right next to Tom before Alphard had shouldered him out of the way was grumbling under his breath about line-cutting Blacks.

"Don't you have breakfast to be getting to?" Abraxas grumped to Alphard.

"Ha! Don't you have breakfast to go to? I'm completely fine here." He took the opportunity of hanging next to Tom to greet and wave any familiar fifth-years that also happened to be passing.

The other Black heir was completely chipper even as Abraxas shoved him back.

Tom gave Abraxas one look to remind him that he was still on the other side of Alphard and still had to suffer the indignity of that shove. The awkward and pale grin he gave in return was accompanied with him pulling Alphard to the side slightly as he reminded the other wizard.

"Stop crowding Tom, you dolt."

Alphard snorted even as he gleefully pulled Abraxas into a headlock. "You've been 'crowding' Tom just the same before I came. I think you're just jealous I replaced you!"

Abraxas managed to elbow his way out of that, but he was too annoyed not to start roughhousing back.

"Why should I be jealous of you?" He scoffed.

Melchior Nott loudly harrumphed at their display of childishness and was of course, soundly ignored. Tom continued to chat with other members of his house, mostly the heirs and firstborns.

No one had thought it strange that it was the fifth-year prefect that was making the general House-wide announcement than the seventh-year Orpington. Oswin himself was quite content to be in the shadow of a much more charismatic leader than he was.

The prefects Orpington and Eccleston had begun to lead everyone away, thankfully including Jemima (the pair of them were quite good at being discreet). Alphard waved at Tom and the rest as he headed out first, most probably because he wishes to catch up with his cousins. Of course, he might also be dodging his sister Walburga (seventh-year), who was just coming up and took it as her personal responsibility to praise Tom's steadfastness. She'd been monologuing him into boredom before she finally left.

Tom trailed behind them all with Abraxas Malfoy and Melchior Nott.

"That was some excellent impromptu speech," Abraxas congratulated.

Nott snickered. "You thought that was unplanned? Why, dear Abraxas, I have this bridge I would like to sell you…"

"Oh, come on. You're just guessing, right? Is he guessing, Tom?"

Tom knowing smile said it all as the three of them walked out of the Slytherin common room. "One has to always be prepared for the worst."

"You can't have prepared for the Ministry to be attacked," Abraxas said in disbelief.

"I have to be prepared for something to be attacked. How long has Grindelwald been sowing chaos in the continent as well as making promises to come back?" Tom asked. His every moment was deliberate with no uncertainty in them; this was a wizard comfortable in his own skin.

"Well…five years, at least?"

"Then an attack really was just a matter of time," Tom murmured easily. He still received disbelieving looks from the blond Slytherin.

"But that's…"

"Plenty of time to be prepared," Melchior finished, eyeing Abraxas' lopsided tie with distaste. It was enough to prompt the blond to start checking himself in a standing suit of armour. "Though, to keep all that speech in one's head for more than a year? To perhaps even improve it from time to time? That takes dedication."

"Actually, I don't memorise it verbatim either," Tom said with amusement.

"I…no, you know what, I don't think I can believe that either. It's too smooth," Abraxas said, shaking his head in denial.

Tom's chuckle followed Abraxas' many proclamations of either disbelief or impossibility, while Melchior poked and prodded at the blond's arguments with his sharp wit but never quite offering one himself either. When asked by Abraxas, he easily conceded that no, he couldn't imagine pulling the speech off so naturally without remembering it by heart either.

He ignored Abraxas' outraged complaints. "You just bloody guessed! I should've known!"

"I certainly didn't guess." Melchior insisted.

"You just said—"

"I know what I said. It's just that I always considered Tom as the exception to…well, anything that crosses my mind, really. So, it's just natural that he's planned for this."

There was a knowing glimmer in Tom's dark blue eyes, but he neither confirmed nor deny Nott's words.

'-

Hermione was in a daze.

She asked Eugenie, of course, making sure that she was fine and that her family was also fine as far as she knew—Père Delacour didn't work at the Ministry, and the French Ministry-of-Magic-in-Exile certainly wasn't listed as one of the places attacked yesterday. She couldn't help sighing in relief for her friend. Checking that was the least she could do for the witch who'd been so helpful during her time in the infirmary. The brunette had only glanced at Lakshmi before the other witch smiled and assured her that she had no worries.

"Well, it's not as if I still have many family members to lose, really. It's not that hard to keep track of the remaining ones."

Hermione raised her head sharply at that, but Lakshmi's slight amusement instead of worry eased her own concerns about her friend.

"Really, I'll go back to the Tower with Eugenie while we wait for more news, yes? And you can go off and do whatever it is that you do to try to fix this—"

"Lakshmi, what happened to your family?"

"My father can't get any deader than he already is. He's already in more peace than all of those people in St. Mungo's, same with my oldest brother, my two uncles and their families," she insisted with her usual bluntness. "Now, Hermione, I'm sure you have a plan?"

"I…" well, not a plan exactly, but she couldn't sit still and do nothing. Even without all of her memories she remembered enough. She kept seeing flashes of wounded people; cuts going straight to the bones, severed limbs. There was the time she kept trying to resuscitate a young Auror until someone pulled her off the dead body, and the way Harry's eye popped as an undead starfish of the darkest magic gouged it from the inside—

"Hermione!"

Lakshmi's voice pulled her back and she knew what she could do. "I need to do something and I'm not sure if St. Mungo's prepared to deal with the effects of some of the muggle weapons. I was thinking of going to Nurse Edelstein and compare notes. Maybe we can write a recommendation for St. Mungo's, or something quite like it."

"And you know all of what a muggle weapon could do?" Her friend asked.

"I know how to treat some of the wounds, and I think that's better than nothing."

"I trust you. Now go to the infirmary and work your overactive brain." Lakshmi patted her hand.

With a smile that she didn't quite feel, Hermione stood up and left.

'-

"Hermione?"

Maggie Edelstein looked up, surprised to see her longest ex-patient walking down the length of the infirmary hall once more. Hermione watched a few straggling students walk out. They either had minor injuries, or they were only here to ask for potion of dreamless sleep.

"You haven't been a nurse for too long, right?" She asked without preamble.

"Hey! I'll have you know, Missy, that I'm a competent professional!"

Hermione shook her head. "That wasn't what I meant. I mean, you haven't left school for long, so your medical education must still be up-to-date, right?"

She paused. "Yes, I suppose. Why?"

"Do they make a point of teaching the trainees and novices how to treat bullet wounds?"

"Bullet wounds?"

"The muggle's 'exploding sticks'," Hermione waved away impatiently. "They have ammunition that they spit out at high velocities. If the mediwitch or mediwizard on the spot just heals the wound without checking since it seemed so small and clean. Goodness knows if the bullet had hit a bone on its way in and fractured or broken something. And I haven't even started on the internal bleeding."

She could see Maggie Edelstein paling even more the further she spoke.

"Are you sure?"

Hermione met her gaze dead on, her voice had stayed no-nonsense, professional. "I suggest that no one use Accio to pull the bullet out. This is not a mere splinter of wood, it's a piece of metal around the width of your fingernail. You'll probably tear an exit wound that way—Morgana help you if the lung or guts is in the way. Punctured lung can easily be patched temporarily with magic…if it was noticed in time."

Her smile did not reach her eyes at all. "A leaking gut is a different issue entirely, isn't it?"

She could see Nurse Edelstein closing her eyes for a moment, her decision was clear the next time she opened them.

"Alright. You make some very good points. How do you even know these things?"

Maggie Edelstein had started walking towards the Head Nurse's office. The brunette followed her brisk pace.

"War." Hermione shrugged when the nurse looked askance at her. "If you've seen your best friend screaming as his eye popped out like a rotten grape when someone summons an undead ancient starfish into the vitreous humour, well. Suddenly you want to train up a particular set of skills."

She could see Maggie's jaw tensing from the side, right up to her temples. The nurse pushed the doors to the office open and Hermione walked right in behind her.

"That's…I don't think I've even heard of that spell."

Hermione's determination had a dark edge. "Off the top of my head, I can tell you ten spells with similar effects that still weren't exactly the spell I was looking for. Give me a parchment and ten minutes and I can recall the rest I've researched trying to track it down—just a few more spells short of thirty and half of them obscure. I still haven't figured out what it actually was, though that's probably because I haven't managed to gain access to some truly extensive libraries of dark magic."

The older witch folded her arms in front of her chest. Maggie was shaking her head.

"I've been wondering about this for a while, Hermione. There's first aid knowledge and there's medical one. What you know have gone past the first category for a while now."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "And this matters right now why? I'm not asking to lead an open brain surgery here! Merlin knows I'm not a specialist. I'm not even a full mediwitch and I know it, but combat injury? I'm sorry to say that I've seen enough to last several lifetimes. I'm just asking for you to listen. Have I said anything wrong before? Mislead you?"

The two witches held each other's gaze and neither was backing down. Maggie was the first to sigh deeply, one hand weaving through her copper hair that shone brilliantly under the morning sun.

"Slughorn made notes about your comments on your own condition on your medical file and he praises it."

Hermione's smile was lopsided. "And we all know that Slughorn is known for his impartiality."

Maggie snorted at that. "Well, no, but he's not completely blind on the medical side for some types of injuries. He can still give some slow interns I know a run for their money. If he says you know what you're talking about, then you do."

"Thanks. So, how are we going to do this? Are we going to write a report and stamp your name and Slughorn's on it?"

Nurse Edelstein frowned. "What?"

"Slughorn's name and yours, Nurse Edelstein. I'm just a mere student. It would be more believable if the name on it was someone more well-known like Slughorn, or a medical professional like you."

Maggie shook her head. "No."

It was Hermione's turn to be baffled. "What?"

"If we're doing this together, then your name is going to go on it as well. I'm not going to claim credit when it's not due."

"But most people wouldn't think—"

"Most people will bleed to death if they don't listen to medical professionals," she firmly stopped Hermione's line of argument without another thought. "Now, tell me what you know and we'll hash out what to write down together. I can contact several of my colleagues by floo to hear what they know and don't know, and I bet we might even have something done by lunch."

It was hard not to be floored at the amount of trust, of belief that the nurse had in her.

"Thank you. You won't regret it, I promise."

Maggie's grin was confident. "Oh, I know. I'm just going to enjoy knocking down some of the snotty medics that I know off their high horses."

'-

Nurse Edelstein was a force of nature in her own right.

Oh, Hermione enjoyed the parts where she floo-called several other nurses and mediwitches and mediwizards that she knew that happened to be off-duty and free to take her call. The nurse asked them about what they knew or heard about the types of injuries from yesterday's attacks, and it was soon clear that not all of the people in the field recognised what had created the injuries. There was one perceptive mediwizard (internist) and one senior nurse who had seen the bloody Crimean War who started checking the condition of the internal organs of the people that were too weak or losing consciousness, even if it seemed that they didn't have any injuries. The number of tests Madam Álava ran was frankly intimidating to hear even to Hermione. Unfortunately, the two highly-skilled professionals were the exception to the rule. Most seemed satisfied if they didn't see any surface wounds or see any bruising.

Ironically, it was perhaps the ease with which magic can close up bullet wounds that made the worsening conditions of some of the patients harder to check.

When Nurse Edelstein reached back to the healer and the senior nurse and told them what she'd found, that most had no idea, they were furious. Furious enough, in the case of nurse, to stepped right into the fireplace and arrive at Hogwarts.

"What do they teach in schools these days?" Esmeralda Álava strode with the confidence of her experience, her all black outfit and tall black hat gave her a quintessentially witchy image. Her grey hair was bundled tightly in a bun and her lips were pinched. Maggie couldn't help but grin.

"Oh, you know there wasn't even much of a nursing school when you were young!"

She sniffed. Her voice was still strong, still strident. "It doesn't mean we should all be barbarians and let the standards fall. Oh, hello, dear, I didn't see you there."

The witch turned her head in a distinctly bird-like gesture, her still sharp and observant eyes fell on Hermione.

"This is Hermione Curie, the student with the idea that we need to disseminate the knowledge on wounds from muggle weapons. Hermione, this is Esmeralda Álava, our Grand Duenna of the Order of Nightingale."

"Pleasure to meet you, Ma'am."

"Good." Her reply was brisk and her face seemed to naturally be severe. "And please, what grand order, Maggie? We're nurses and we keep people from dying. It's as simple as that."

"She singlehandedly established professional nursing standards in wizarding Britain." Maggie mock-whispered to Hermione.

Esmeralda harrumphed. "Rumours and exaggeration. Grow old enough and they collect like hairballs from a cat's vomit."

Hermione blinked at the salty language.

"Well, they don't just happen like that for everyone. It's only around you, Madam Álava." Nurse Edelstein insisted.

"Granny." She corrected. "You've actually volunteered across the Channel. You've earned it."

Maggie's expression was almost fond. "Alright. Granny Álava."

The fireplace lit up again and soon a distinguished, middle-aged man with brown hair took his hat off. His wire-rimmed glasses were made of gold and seemed both functional and expensive.

"Oh, Madam Álava is already here? Well, this promises to be interesting."

"Maggie is up to her usual tricks again, and I'll be damned if I don't get a front seat to her muckraking." Madam Álava explained.

"I'm not muckraking," The redhead insisted.

"Well, if you prefer we stick to the word 'scandalising' as your old nursing matrons would like to put down on your reports, we can do that too." The senior nurse bluntly said. "Orpington, let us watch as Maggie scandalise some of St. Mungo's old guards. If she can throw in some subtle and even not-so-subtle questions about their competence, I'll treat everyone to dinner."

She was not the slightest bit moved by the colour that started to flood Nurse Edelstein's cheeks.

"You're part of St. Mungo's old guards!"

"I'm Emeritus, dear. I can be as critical as I wish, and they have to shut up, listen and call it wisdom." Esmeralda said, her eyes gleaming with silver.

"So, you were saying that a common effect of these exploding sticks is internal bleeding?" The mediwizard asked, clearly taking the safe road of not engaging with Madam Álava at all.

"Yes, Healer Orpington. This is Hermione Curie here and she has experience working with wounds from muggle weapons. Hermione, this is Oleander Orpington, Healer of St. Mungo's."

"Charmed, I'm sure." He nodded. Hermione returned his greeting with a half-curtsy of sorts.

"Well, I had been canvassing any colleagues I can contact. It's mostly anyone that's not on shift right now," Nurse Edelstein said. "And apparently, there's no protocol in place for wounds by muggle weaponry and they're probably missing a lot of internal bleeding. The more obvious broken bones are fortunately, more easily detectable, and anyone found by rubbles would be checked for fractures and broken bones, so those are fortunately not an issue."

"If someone is crushed nearby, then they should have checked for internal bleeding!" That was Madam Álava again, eyes flashing.

"Well, perhaps there is no sign that the person has been under any sort of rubble," Healer Orpington gingerly started.

"You wouldn't even think of being that careless." She flattened his efforts to allay her concerns.

"Well, it wouldn't really take much time and it's better safe than sorry. So—"

"Exactly. This is untenable."

"There's also the risk of pulmonary contusion," Hermione added, once she thought there was a pause in Madam Álava's rapid-fire sentences. The medical professionals in the room turned to her.

"I saw the photographs of the Ministry of Magic. They used muggle explosives there, didn't they? Whenever you have people in the vicinity of explosives, you'd have to take into account that some would have primary blast injuries. It's the shockwaves from the explosions—they create a high-pressure wave moving at supersonic speeds. It's too easy for the capillaries in the lungs to burst or tear the alveolus tissue. It would fill the alveoli sacs with blood. I suppose someone's bound to notice when some of the patients cough up blood, though, but that's not a guaranteed symptom in all cases so some critical patients might still be beneath notice." Hermione's brows furrowed slightly.

"Speaking of supersonic shockwaves, as it's the propagation of energy through air, it would be worse in a closed room than in the open where the energy can be more easily dissipated into the environment."

"The effects of muggle explosions are similar to some of the more percussive spells, then?" Healer Orpington asked.

Hermione's brows rose. "Why, yes. Except more severe, as the energy is multiple times larger. Oh, I remember something else—air embolism. You've got to watch out for possible pockets of air developing during the explosion. I suppose if it had blocked an artery, my advice would be moot as anyone suffering such would've died soon afterwards." Her following smile was more bitter than not.

"You're exceedingly well-informed on these types of injuries, Miss Curie." The Healer noted.

Hermione shrugged. "War. You have an entirely different sort of drive to learn when you know you're the one standing between your friends and greater harm."

"Anyway, you don't have to believe what I said. I'm sure we can collect the continental newspapers like Der Spiegel—wait no, that's a muggle one—Die Knöchelknochen, I think. Sooner or later, there'd be wizards and witches wounded by muggle weapons in their reports. Maybe there'd even be a description of the wounds. I'm sure there'd be many similarities."

"Well, we can't just sit around," Madam Álava said, promptly standing up. "Come on, then."

Maggie only sighed, but she stood up and took her coat from the hanger. She even took Hermione's coat from the hanger and handed it to her. "Come on Hermione."

"Uh, where are we going?"

"Why, to St. Mungo's, of course." Madam Álava said.

"But I have classes," Hermione replied, more confused than anything.

"You can owl Dippet some sort of dispensation letter, can't you, Oleander?" The Senior Nurse turned to the Healer. He was entirely too calm in the face of her demands, as if he was used to hearing them.

"I'll get my secretary on it as we get back to St. Mungo's."

"Excellent."

Esmeralda Álava took a pinch of floo powder from Maggie's pot, knowing exactly which one it was, threw it into the fireplace and stepped in after calling St. Mungo's as a destination. Healer Orpington turned to them.

"Well, ladies, I'll go first since I probably will have to coordinate on the St. Mungo's side."

"You have to stop Madam Álava from scaring the interns and terrorising the low-level administrators, you mean?" Nurse Edelstein asked dryly.

He placed his bowler hat on his head again.

"Exactly as I say. I need to coordinate our party's movements with St. Mungo's." His smile was wry and he left in the same way that Madam Álava did. The fire crackled in the grate, the last of the green colour had already vanished as it returned to its reddish colour.

"Right. Our turn, then." Maggie said.

"Us?"

Nurse Edelstein gave Hermione a side glance. "I did say that we're doing this together."

"But, but you already know what I needed to tell you." The brunette said, with not a little amount of surprise. "It's mostly just that. I'm sure you can follow the consequences of explosives and high-velocity projectiles and come up with a list of possible injuries to check and—oh, come on, Maggie, you're a nurse. I'm sure the rest of the healers and nurses at St. Mungo's aren't complete idiots either. Not with someone like Madam Álava among them. They'll figure it out."

Maggie's smile was fond. Hermione glared at her when she started patting her head, though. Never mind that Nurse Edelstein had several inches on her.

"You don't get it, do you?"

"What?"

"Madam Álava doesn't just take anyone with her on her rounds. If she thinks you're good enough to be an intern or a nurse, no one in St. Mungo is going to gainsay her."

"What?" Hermione still couldn't quite understand what Maggie was saying.

The nurse huffed. "She didn't correct you and she let you finish without interruption. That's high praise coming from The Duenna. That means she thinks you know enough that you might as well follow and learn more of the healing craft to be even more useful. Come on, she's going to be ornery if we're slow."

'-

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End Notes:

Alphard Black enters the story. Oh, in case you were wondering about him? Yeah, he's canon. There really is a lot of Blacks in this generation. Walburga, Alphard and Cygnus are from a cadet branch of the Black family and the children of Pollux Black and Irma Crabbe.

'-

List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:

Père: (French) Father. Or, to use the in-text case, Père Delacour refers to Delacour the Father, which is clearly Eugenie's dad.

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Some Notes on How I Interpret Wizarding Culture (Random Sociological Detail):

Even if one were to assume that the past is probably more sexist than the present, we still have a solid evidence of how witches can advance their career in canon in the form of the line of UK's Minister of Magics. JK Rowling set this.

Now, compare the gender ratio among the various ministers with the gender ratio of the prime minister of UK up to 1942. There are no females on the second list. Nil. Zilch. Nada. (Thatcher's term starts at 1979). Of the first, there's Artemisia Lufkin, Josephina Flint, Ottaline Gambol, Hortensia Milliphutt, Evangeline Orpington, Priscilla Dupont, and Venusia Crickerly—that's seven women as Ministers of Magic, along with seventeen male ones. That meant around a quarter of all Minister of Magics are women. It's not close to a 1:1 ratio of female to male ministers, but it's a sight better than what the muggle world has managed to accomplish up to that time.

We can take the strong societal preference for young people to get married soon in the wizarding world based on all those young marriages in canon's epilogue that somehow lasted decades (100% survival rate for teen marriage! Unheard of in places where a wife is not just the property/an extension of her husband. Odds are, I'll try to rationalise/deconstruct this as well in a later chapter).

As the female ministers of magic implied, a married witch that also happens to hold a respectable occupation is not as extraordinary as a non-magical woman trying for a career in the 1940s. It probably helped that you can't use the old excuse of woman being 'the weaker sex' when magical might does not correlate strongly with physical one. Also, there's no such thing as time wasted on the road/commute when your civilisation relies on floo travel and apparition, which is a plus for work-life balance and spending time with the kids (for both parents). Hence, there's also less pressure for witches to become full-time, stay-at-home spouses.

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Additional Trivia:

Die Knöchelknochen: (German) the Knucklebones. Look, the Mirror (Der Spiegel) is already a real newspaper (and media empire in the present day) in Germany. I have to make the wizarding world equivalent with a naming theme that's close to the Brits' the Daily Prophet. Why knuckle bones? Because one, the name has that funny rhyme in German and two, knuckle bones are one of the methods of foretelling the future. It's also not something that was all-too-obviously imported into German culture. I mean, oracles? That's clearly Greek, dude. Crystal balls? Not ancient enough and pretty sure it was imported too from cultures that figured out how to make smooth crystal balls first—that's also another hint of how pretty modern it is.

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Emma Eccleston (OC): Seventh-year Slytherin prefect. Her last name, as one would note, is not one of the Sacred 28, but I thought even Slytherin house can't be filled with all Sacred 28 family members. It's probably not a muggleborn name, though. Emma is a shortening of old Germanic names that began with 'Ermen'. It means 'whole' or 'universal'.

I have been reminded/warned on a different story I wrote (different fandom, different site and account), that I am rather oblivious to the importance that some people in the fandom attach to the names of the actors and actresses that play the popular characters. I didn't realise that my sister was associating Emma here as looking like the twin of Emma Watson, and as an extension, Hermione, until she asked about it. Seriously, no. If she looked like anything, it's probably Ise Nanao in Bleach. Anyway, this is my first and only warning about that.

So, if you think I used an actor's name for an OC on purpose…no, it's almost always a coincidence.

This end note is getting too long. I'm dropping Oswin Orpington's mini bio at the end of the next chapter that he appears in.

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