As the door to the infirmary opens, Kate looks up from the potions ingredients that she in the process of preparing for Professor Snape to brew the infirmaries batch of different ingredients. As she does, Minerva walks in with a first-year boy levitating behind her, "Is Madam Pomphrey here?"
Kate shakes her head, "She has just gone to the clinic, can you put them on the bed here and tell me what seems to be the problem?"
As Minerva manoeuvres the boy onto the bed, Kate sets up a dictaquill in the way that Poppy instructed her to, "This is Colin Creevey, we found him near the place we found the cat. At first I thought he'd been the subject of a prank for trying to take a photograph of someone, but none of the standard counter spells have worked."
Kate nods before taking a small mirror off the desk and taking it over to Colin. Placing her fingers against his neck, she frowns, "No pulse, and there is no give in the skin of the neck." Placing the mirror over Colins mouth and nose she shakes her head, "No sign of fogging on the mirror, patient is probably not breathing."
As she puts the mirror back on the desk, she puts the dictaquill down again, "Professor, would you be able to watch the infirmary while I go and notify Madam Pomphrey that her expertise is needed?"
Minerva gives a sour look, but nods, "Go ahead."
Smiling at the professor, she gathers up the parchment before stepping into the mist. Seconds later she steps out again in the clinic, and looks through the couple of rooms before she finds her master, "Master, I'm sorry to interrupt."
Poppy pinches her nose, "Kate, I thought we all agreed that due to your medical history you weren't going to call me that."
"Sorry, but there's a child that isn't breathing and has no detectable pulse in the infirmary. He is also rigid, and his skin has no give in it."
Poppy sighs with exasperation, "Kate, don't apologise for calling me for an emergency. Sorry to cut this short, but I need to get back to the infirmary. Kate, whenever you're ready."
Kate smiles before taking Poppy's hand and walking back to the infirmary.
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Poppy shakes her head as Kate brings her out of the mist. Once her head's clear, she bustles over to the young boy and starts casting diagnostics.
"He is petrified, and will need a mandrake draft in order to unpetrify him. Kate, did you hear anything?"
Kate shakes her head, "Sorry, I didn't. You could ask Harry. Also, have you considered having Airmed having a look?"
Poppy looks at Minerva, "You're the acting headmaster, what do you think?"
Minerva thinks for a moment, "Can you ask Airmed to examine Mr Creevey, also what is the availability of Mandrake Draft?"
Poppy shakes her head, "Low, as the draft also provides short term protection against the stare of a basilisk, gorgon, and also cockatrice. Not to mention the other potions that mandrakes are used for. For a few magical diseases, it becomes an effort to ensure that the patient stays alive long enough for mandrakes to mature, and then have the potion brewed."
Minerva nods, "Start making enquiries just in case. If we get more petrification's then the urgency will obviously go up. Kate, would you mind asking Professor Danann if she would be able to check with the goblins, as I know she has a good relationship with them." Kate looks surprised, and quickly nods her head, "Meanwhile, I'm going to notify the Department of Magical Creature Control. I hope Albus gets back soon. I can't put off my other responsibilities for too much longer."
Kate tilts her head to one side, "Would you be able to pay a couple of 7th year NEWT students to take your 1st and 2nd year classes? Maybe also give them credit towards their exams."
Minerva leans against a bed while she thinks about it, and mumbles under her breath as she's doing so. Meanwhile, Kate goes back to preparing the potions ingredients.
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Skye curses as someone starts an insistent banging on her front door. Putting a receipt into the textbook she was reviewing, she glances down at the primer on Ogham that she's in the process of writing before standing up. Shaking her head as the pattern of knocking becomes clearer, she's fairly sure it's Liz.
As she opens the door Liz jumps through and pulls her into a hug, "Skye, where have you been?"
"Hi Liz."
"Don't 'Hi Liz' me, you can't just turn up and show me the linguists wet dream, and then drop off the map like that."
"Why don't you come in?"
Lis flounces past Skye, "Don't mind if I do, I brought a bottle of wine by the way."
Skye wanders back into her living room while Lis roots around in her cupboards for some glasses. As she picks up the textbook, and grabs her notebook and pen, she starts reading again.
"What are you doing?" Skye looks up as Liz sets a couple of mismatched glasses on the table with a clink. Before she can answer Liz notices her Ogham primer, "Ohh, what's this? What language are you writing here?"
"Ogham, it's a primer on Ogham."
"Don't they already have those?"
Skye puts her pen down and looks up, "They do, but they're wrong. So I decided to do it properly."
"How do you know they're wrong? The were written by experts in their field."
Skye laughs, "The only person who's written it correctly is Dr Danann, and she's never written a primer. There's a book she wrote on the Celtic Language on my bookcase over there, knock yourself out."
Liz gets up to grab the book and sits back down, "You still haven't told me what you're doing."
"Reading up for my new job."
Sarcastically Liz asks, "What, some sort of teacher?"
"Yes. Student led learning with 3 lab sessions every year."
"Wait, really? What about your PhD?"
"Mmm, seems kinda pointless now."
"What!? But you were always going on about lasers and how they could be used to isolate individual molecules."
"Liz, could you grab the box of matches from the kitchen, you know where they are."
Liz gets up with Morgana's book and grabs the box of matches that Skye uses to light scented candles, "Now what?"
"Take one of the matches and hold it up and check that it's actually a match."
Liz scoffs, "Of course it's a match, it's made of wood, and it has the little red…" Skye glances up and changes the match into a bone netting needle, with a scene from a fishing village Ecne remembers etched into it, "…thing."
Liz first checks her half full glass of wine, then checks that the bottle isn't empty, "How? I know I haven't had so much to drink, and the wine doesn't taste funny."
Skye scoffs, "Magic. Did you know that if you expand space, then the speed of light stops been constant." She pulls a staff out of her bedroom and levitates it over to Liz, "There's my notes on it."
"What? This is a stick."
Skye sighs, "It's a staff, and my notes are written in Ogham, you should be able to feel the indentations with your fingers."
Liz puts the staff on the floor, "Stick, staff, what's the difference. The point is that you learnt to understand at least 5 different languages seemingly overnight."
Skye shakes her head and mutters, "You have no idea how true that is."
Ignoring the interruption, Liz continues, "I want to know just how you did it, and for you to teach me. My teachers want to know how you did it so quickly, and how to teach other people."
Skye laughs, "You want to know how to learn this? Make friends with an ancient goddess after accidentally finding out that magic exists, then accept an offer to learn about it from them. Finally, be taken to a dead gods domain and let loose into their library."
"This isn't a laughing matter, I was serious. And the only goddess I know of is that girl out in America, though the leaders of the bible study group say that she's actually an angel."
Skye laughs even harder, and struggles to write down a prayer using the English alphabet, before tearing it out of her notebook, "This is a prayer to the Morrigan, once you've said this bit, tell her that Skye gave it to you because you don't believe she exists."
Liz takes the sheet of paper and shoves it in her bag with a huff, before turning back to the book, primer, and wine.
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Morgana is sitting with the 2nd years for their daily tutoring session when Mihaela storms out of the mist and punches her round the face, "Do you have any idea what I had to go through to get back here?"
Morgana rolls with the blow off of her chair and to her feet, "Welcome back, how do you feel?"
"How do I feel? How do I feel!? I've almost died there, and you're asking me how I feel?"
Morgana smiles, "I thought you were willing to sacrifice yourself in order to keep those people safe."
Mihaela lunges for her again, but Morgana dances out of the way, "You had no right to do that to me."
"Does Aífe agree with you?"
Mihaela reels back as though struck, "You know she doesn't."
Harry looks up from his work, "Mum, what did you do?"
Harry's voice cuts through Mihaela's anger like a hot knife through butter, and she looks around with wide eyes, taking in her surroundings for the first time, "Oh shit!"
Morgana looks over at Harry, "Harry, this is the atheist soldier that you've heard about. She prayed to Me last month to request that I protect a large town the same way that I protected The Sanctuary."
Harry's voice takes on that odd double timbre, "[Mum/Sister] why did you not call for my aid?"
Morgana looks like she's bitten a lemon as she answers, "Because you're my child and I don't want to force you into your choice. You've seen what Daphne's like. I couldn't inflict that on you."
"Shouldn't that have been my decision [Mother/Sister]?"
Morgana sighs, "Harry, Brigid, do you honestly think that I don't know you'd agree without even thinking twice about it?"
Harry shakes his head, "I might have surprised you."
"Show of hands, who here thinks that Harry would ever turn down someone if they asked him for protection?"
Daphne and Marianne both put their hands up, "He wouldn't/Harry would."
Daphne indicates to Marianne, who says, "Harry wouldn't protect my father."
Daphne nods, "I don't know what Brigid was like, but the Harry I know is kind, caring, and principled. I don't think he's protect someone that he personally knows is a bad person. Such as whoever it is that Padma keeps reacting to. Have you made any more progress on that?"
Padma shakes her head, "No, I still can't ride the song long enough to identify them without being afraid of falling into it."
Mihaela swears under her breath, "Look, what about all of those people who are being attacked?"
Morgana shakes her head, "Why don't you do something about it then?"
"You know I can't…"
"Aífe, you know who I am, why do you think I could? Especially for devout Muslims."
"Who cares about their religion? They're innocent people, and you did Sanctuary."
"I did sanctuary with two other family members, after the magical community undid the stuff I did on my own. Sanctuary is vastly smaller than Sarajevo. So I say again, why don't you do it. You have Aífe's memories to draw on. Don't forget, you gave your life to me to protect them, so go do what I couldn't."
Mihaela drops to the floor, "I can't! Anything I could do would be as bad as doing nothing."
Harry walks over and places her hands on Mihaela's shoulders, "We learnt that sometimes the price of doing something is higher than the price of doing nothing. We also learnt that sometimes those costs are not obvious at first glance, as the people you trust may not have the power to do what they promised. We think she was content after she split from us, but our people were still lost.
"Maybe you can find some people in Sarajevo who are willing to forgo their godless religion and look to you for guidance. You can also call upon us in battle, or when there are sick and injured, and we will come to help. If you can get a new people there, we may even be able to help you protect a nearby village the same way [Mother/Sister] did The Sanctuary. However, we are still a child yet to achieve our full growth or mastery in our own magic."
Mihaela hits the stone floor, "Why do you have to make so much sense? God damn it, why?"
Harry just rubs her shoulders while everyone else starts to relax.
After a few minutes, Daphne pulls Morgana to one side, "Morgana, um, since I took a fruit basket to the man that's been reading to me, and renovated his house, I've been feeling a pull in the Otherside. Is that what I think it is?"
Morgana nods, "If you think it's a new domain, then almost certainly yes."
"But what if I don't want to be a god?"
Morgana places a hand on Daphne's shoulder, "As long as you don't pull on the domain, or visit it, you will remain mortal for as long as you wish. However, that won't change the fact that people look to you for aid and advice."
Daphne looks relieved, "I've seen what it's doing to Harry, Marianne, and also Padma, and I don't think I'm ready for that sort of responsibility yet."
"Yet you have already taken it up, have you not? Tell me, if you could go back to that interview and hide your name right now. Would you?"
Daphne opens her mouth to say yes, and then slumps her shoulders, "I couldn't, too many people would die or be homeless if I did that."
"How hard do you think it was for Harry to say what they said in there?"
"I don't know, but he didn't seem to be affected by it."
Morgana nods, "Brigid was always very composed. But one of the ways you can tell it was hard is that Harry was drawing on Brigid the entire time. As it stands, I've had to tell him to go to bed twice since the first year was petrified, and I know Poppy, Madam Pomphrey, has had to do the same for Kate."