Surprise, you're dead.
[AN: Does not contain an actual fatality. Might be a reference to a Faith No More song by this name.]
Months later, Harry had not exactly got better, but he was at work, making a difference. He ran every other day, and his bedtime routine included … vigorous exercise but he was a young man with urges. And enough self-loathing from the way Greengrass had been treated by life to not want to go clubbing for a while too. Not enough to throw out the mouldering magazines, or cover the pictures Sirius had stuck onto the wall, but enough to behave himself. For all he knew the next girl he picked up would have had an equally rotten life.
Harry was trying to eat a dried out Ministry cafeteria sandwich mid-shift when the Welcome witch's voice echoed down the hallway.
"Gunshot wound, Witch, pulse thready!"
Harry threw the sandwich away and was running towards trouble before he'd thought about it.
A blonde witch in muggle clothes was floating on a casualty charm, with the Welcome Witch staring – she caught sight of Harry and relaxed "Harry Potter!" she exclaimed. Harry brushed aside the annoyance; he was 'Healer Potter' after all – and dashed over, and started casting diagnostic charms. The only spells on the witch were fading. And she was dripping blood, clutching at her belly.
Harry yanked the – probably wouldn't die – witch into the nearest consult room, and said "Get Out!" to the older wizard sitting waiting for something. They replied with an indignant "I'm waiting for my healer to come back," and Harry's wand had the wizard knock-back jinxed out of the room still on their chair in a screech of wood on tile quicker than you could say 'thready heartbeat.'
Harry concentrated, and with a tricky wand-motion, switching charmed the witch's coat off onto the floor. Under her coat she'd been wearing a pale pink shirt – now bloody, and a skirt. Harry vanished the shirt, revealing a pale body and a shaking hand over a bleeding wound. He cast a rushed hover-charm and levitated the patient till he could see her back – there wasn't a through-hole, at least.
"Shall I get a resident?" asked the Welcome Witch.
"Someone from spell-damage," said Harry, as the witch dripped blood.
Now having even the faintest idea about the scope of the problem, he lowered the patient, and gently pulled her stiff hand off the wound. The wound was small and round. Either a piercing hex or a bullet, he mused. But the witch was only semi-conscious, and loosing blood. He reached into his space-expanded probe pocket and pulled out the potions-rack, which he rested on the examination table. He spilled a blood-replenishing potion slowly into the patients mouth – and they didn't choke, so there was that. He considered momentarily banishing a second blood-replenisher into her stomach, but… there was a bullet hole in her abdomen. In his second year of residency his tutor had explained the way potions spills into bodies were a terrible mess… and that modern blood-replenisher could work in the mouth, if you were careful. 'Or we'd lose a lot more patients' she'd finished bluntly.
Harry put his wand over the hole and gritted his teeth. "Accio bullet!" he cast, and a small, bloody lump pulled out of the patient. Bleeding increased, but Harry simply snatched the bullet with one hand, threw it to one side, and started casting Vulnera Sultennar. Five incantations later – probably a muggle weapon then – the bleeding had, for all practical purposes, stopped. He took a few deep breaths, and trickled another blood-replenisher into her mouth. The patient looked dreadfully pale, but could, he supposed, given the nose, look a bit like Greengrass. Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck lifting. Surely not? A third blood-replenishing potion trickled in and the patient's eyelids fluttered. Harry gingerly thumbed one eyelid open. A grey-blue eye, shocky and not tracking. He felt suddenly nauseous and sweaty. Surely she hadn't taken his casual banter as instructions? And moreover, had…. Harry cast a charm to detect a stone-skin charm. Greengrass – and it probably WAS Greengrass, was wearing a stone-skin charm. Which hadn't stopped a bullet. Though, his memory reminded him, one of his Defence texts that Sirius had given him for a Christmas present years ago had said stone-skin charms didn't stop powerful projectiles. Harry left Greengrass for a second, and searched her coat – a medium brown coloured wand in a pocket felt off in his hands. Harry cast priori incantato on it, and saw, in the blue wisp from the wand, wand motion for a stunner, a basic shield – with a pretty bad circle – then disillusionment, then some charm he didn't recognise. He put the wand on top of her coat, and went back to see if the potion was working. She looked less deathly pale, but was a bloody mess. Harry used the same charms he used on Teddy's bum to clean her off – under the blood there was her waist, and the bra looked familiar. A fourth blood-replenishing potion, and Greengrass coughed.
"Drink the potion, it's a blood replenisher," said Harry slowly and clearly. She opened her eyes.
"You," she said weakly.
"The health professional you see most often," said Harry awkwardly. "I think you were shot?"
"Uhuh," she said weakly. "It hurts," she complained, and tried to move her arms.
"Shhh.. lie still," said Harry, "I've got the bullet out, and stopped the bleeding. I need you to lie still."
Harry waited, "can you lie still?" he asked.
"Ugh," she grimaced.
"I wanted to be sure you're not perforated before I go giving you complex potions," said Harry. "So lie still while I check, okay?"
"Ow," said Greengrass, sounding rather cross. She was being a quite good patient, he thought – though not getting her sexy body shot would have been preferable. Being shot was not medically advisable. He felt a moment's gratitude to Madam Pomfrey – who had attended his St Mungo's Graduation and given him, and he felt it was truly ironic, a Hogwarts bedpan… from his official Hogwarts infirmary bed.
Harry cast a visualisation charm on her belly, and the charm went wonky when it reached to her bra… which was probably the space-expansion. The bra did look smaller than he remembered an au-naturel Daphne Greengrass being. And he concentrated on the gunshot wound rather than well on what her stripper tits and… other things had looked like. The bullet had, as he expected made a sodding mess of her intestines, and perhaps blood vessels, but they were mended, it had also nicked the hepatic portal. Which accounted for the blood and 'painful death if not treated immediately.' Harry cast a couple of invisibility charms on Greengrass's belly and with a bit of fiddling, mended the hepatic portal properly, then vanished the gore in the wound. There was no sign of continuing leakage, so that was a good one.
He mended her intestine, and expanded the visualisation charm to check for other damage. There didn't seem to be any. He popped a preservation charm over the wound, and summoned the bullet again.
This time he cleaned it off with a scourgify, and checked it carefully. It was intact, and he did a basic potions-ingredient sorting charm on it – Old Merryweather, who'd seemed such a vapid, pompous teacher beginning of medical third year had explained condescendingly that knowing what something that had punctured a body was made of was essential for checking that it wasn't going to poison your patient, or worse, react weirdly with your potions regimen.
Someone came in and closed the door. Harry was staring at the spiralling mist coming off the bullet – which looked like a mixture of copper and lead so far if he was reading the charm right.
"Potter, what have you got?" asked – Harry looked over at Dunwich. She was a good old stick.
"Witch apparated in with gunshot wound," said Harry. "Four blood replenishing potions trickled in only. Nick to hepatic portal, repaired. Liver undamaged, intestines repaired. Bullet summoned out, it appears to be just lead and copper; I'm pretty sure I can just mend membranes and close."
"Pretty sure," said Dunwich. She looked like someone's mum apart from the green robes.
"I'm sure," said Harry. "Site's still visible, Healer Dunwich if you'd like to check."
Dunwich nodded once, almost smiling, and walked over slowly – vanishing the blood on the floor as she came.
"What on earth's wrong with the visualisation charm Potter?" asked Dunwich sharply.
"Space-expanded bra, Maam," said Harry, mending a membrane that kept Greengrass's intestines from sticking to things they shouldn't.
Dunwich cleared her throat.
"I um, know the patient," said Harry.
"S'my Healer" croaked Greengrass. "I'm sore!" she complained.
"Potter, pain?" asked Dunwich.
"Not issuing pain potion till digestive track intact Maam," said Harry.
"Now would be good Potter – not everyone's a bally hero," said Dunwich drily.
Harry grabbed a pretty good pain potion from his rack, said "Pain Potion" and tipped the entire small bottle down Greengrass's throat. She swallowed, had time to say "aaah" and fell unconscious.
"And that was?"
"Belby's improved medical pain reliever, maam. Four cc's… she will sleep for about six hours, and will …" Harry checked the intestinal membranes… "Be able to drink water, rest till nursing have checked she's walking and weeing, then be discharged."
"Good. Why the hell has she got a space-expansion charm in her brassiere?"
"It's a minimiser," said Harry.
"Know the patient well, do you?" asked Dunwich snidely.
"Not like that maam… she had some… work related injuries a while back," said Harry.
"And the patient's name is?"
"Daphne Greengrass," said Harry, "I was at Hogwarts with her."
Dunwich sighed "And… what's a respectable young witch doing getting attacked by muggles?"
"I have my doubts," said Harry, "She's had a succession of bad jobs, maam, The latest one's much better but I think she's in banking these days. So… I think it could have been a robbery."
Dunwich checked Greengrass over and said "So she's had a lot of work done then, your friend?"
Harry looked into Greengrass's thorax instead. "Um, not really" said Harry, checking her membranes and blood vessels. Missing a hole would be very bad later.
"And the space expanded brassiere?"
"She'd rather not have a big bust," said Harry, not explaining any of the details to that. "I did treat her for a mild dysmorphia – she really loathed her lips, so she brought in a photo of her mum, and that's a partial transfiguration."
"And the waist?"
"I believe," said Harry, cancelling the invisibility charm on her wound-site "That's largely natural, with lots of exercise."
"So she's what, twenty-five and unmarried, looking like that?" asked Dunwich, a shade unprofessionally.
"She's been married twice actually," said Harry, casting some more cleaning charms – the bra came clean.
"Twice, at her age?" said Dunwitch, a tad more hypocritically than hippocratically.
Harry summoned a patient's gown, and handed it to Dunwich "If you would?" he asked.
"You don't want to touch her?"
"Well, If I was a girl, I'd feel better knowing a bloke didn't take my skirt off while I was unconscious." said Harry, and he turned and started to clean her robe.
"You can just vanish patients clothes if they're badly damaged," said Dunwich behind him.
"It's special, it's got space-expanded pockets" said Harry, "Her family have started selling them – they make our new maternity dresses, and the new work robes with the space-expanded pockets"
"So you've got them donating to St Mungo's?" asked Dunwich, "She's covered," she added.
Harry finished repairing a bullet-hole in Greengrass's robe, and turned. The white patient's gown didn't suit Greengrass's complexion.
He took the skirt from Dunwich, summoned a patients' effects bag, and put her robe, skirt and wand into it, and labelled it with a quick wizards-mark charm 'D. Greengrass.'
"Married twice?" asked Dunwich.
"Her family," said Harry tiredly, "fled England in ninety-six, once she'd done her OWLs, I assume. Lived with her grandmother – got married to move out…"
"Merlin's left nut," said Dunwich, looking shocked. Harry nodded.
"Twice?"
"Patient said that her older husband died in bed. Implied he'd been using performance enhancing potions." said Harry, Dunwich shook her head, "poor girl."
Harry shrugged. "Then married her husband's cousin, who went to England and died in Death Eater regalia in the war."
"Oh god," said Dunwitch.
Harry shrugged "She didn't seem overly traumatised by it. Family history of early death in females, linked to pregnancy."
Dunwich raised her eyebrows.
"Sister is symptomatic, she's getting treated using muggle medicine, and apparently that's working – they've spent centuries trying," said Harry, "She came home after the war, and well… family finances were a bit shot, had a succession of bad… but not sex jobs. Asymptomatic, which was helpful in determining the actual problem, of course."
"Good lord," said Dunwich, "I'm talking to Thwaite about getting you into Trauma… you did very well on your own, and … muggle healing ?"
"If we tried and failed for two centuries, we might as well try the other… and before you ask, in the last couple of decades they've got a lot better a treating some inherited things." Harry paused "They're still pants at treating simple stuff, but… I mean I know how the muggle system works – even the specialist can be free… but in her sister's case, they went private, as the girl's not well already… I think the sister's like three years younger."
"Good lord," said Dunwich, looking Harry up and down "You surprise me, Potter." And added "In a good way. On the other hand… you will be demonstrating pain relief charms on my rounds next week, or it goes in your file."
"Pain relief?"
"You didn't make the patient comfortable. There is not a war on, the extra thirty seconds wouldn't have killed her."
"She was called as weak thready pulse by the Welcome witch," said Harry quietly. "Speed seemed to matter."
"And you checked that?"
"Um … no"
"Again… you demonstrate pain charms on my rounds next Wednesday, or I tell the superintendent of Registrars you've a weakness in technique." said Dunwich.
Harry couldn't help scowling.
"Don't pout, it's undignified in a Healer," said Dunwich. "I will concede that given you were treating a friend, your judgement might have been a bit off."
Harry sighed.
"What did she first present for anyway?" asked Dunwich.
Harry didn't say 'Trying to bribe me into marrying her to heal her sister,' as he felt that was possibly not the impression he wanted to create. He said "Came expecting Harry Potter, the man who won, to save her sister."
"Next time cast a pain charm," said Dunwich. "I'll be speaking to her before she's discharged," she said, and summoned a patient chart, and scribbled onto the bottom to the top page.
"Now, you fill it in… legibly," said Dunwich, and she unlocked the door and stopped in the doorway.
"Potter," she said "Do remember to have a work-life balance. You will be down-marked if you come into your next year a moody recluse. We've got one Wogglesbury, don't need another."
"Who's Wigglesbury?"
"Wogglesbury, head of tropical diseases… he's on medical leave so you won't have met him."
"What's he got?"
"Tropical diseases." said Dunwich. "He's ninety, unmarried, and regularly comes in off his head. That's mostly some exotic brain parasite he got that makes him very vague."
"Couldn't it be treated?"
"So exotic," said Dunwich, "He's heard of, nobody else knows how you treat yakspurts"
"Wrackspurts" said Harry automatically.
Dunwich's eyes narrowed. "Some muggle treatment?"
"I've heard of them," said Harry, wondering if Luna was the sane one, and he, and everyone else were mad. He discarded that thought immediately. He was fine.
-=0=-