28th July, 1888 — Hogsmeade Hospital
This month had seen them more stretched than perhaps ever before, somehow even worse than the summer of the laughing plague: they were down magic; down some of their staff to the Irvingly expedition; the fog was at fault for all kinds of avoidable injuries; and to top it all off, the recent news of werewolf attacks in London and of vampire attacks in Hogsmeade swirling in the air were feeding ever more into the general feeling of hysteria.
None of the healers here had the time or the luxury of feeling hysterical, however. Ari felt a little like the living dead himself. He could hardly say how many hours he'd been on his feet today, never mind how many hours of the past month and a half he'd spent beyond the hospital. The front doors beyond the waiting room now seemed like the edge of the very world. There was a little amusing irony, Ari supposed, in the fact of how often people had tried to convince him that he hadn't had much of a life before. This was a new level of accomplishment.
Not that he begrudged the state of his days in the slightest, of course! Besides in moments like these, where the most recent admittee to the ward had spent longer than he had treating her trying to induce him to pass on a volley of complaints both to Mr. Keene and to Minister Ross about the whole situation. Needless to say, Ari had not been persuaded, but he had done his best to soothe her distress, and when that failed, offered her his sincerest of sympathies and a potent sleeping draught.
What he wouldn't give for a ten-minute nap, he thought, wondering whether he might manage to barricade himself in the office for that amount of time. The fantasy was scuppered by the abrupt sound of a crash in the hallway, too close to ignore. Ari cast his office door a last longing look before turning on his heel and dashing back round the corner into the hall.
None of the healers here had the time or the luxury of feeling hysterical, however. Ari felt a little like the living dead himself. He could hardly say how many hours he'd been on his feet today, never mind how many hours of the past month and a half he'd spent beyond the hospital. The front doors beyond the waiting room now seemed like the edge of the very world. There was a little amusing irony, Ari supposed, in the fact of how often people had tried to convince him that he hadn't had much of a life before. This was a new level of accomplishment.
Not that he begrudged the state of his days in the slightest, of course! Besides in moments like these, where the most recent admittee to the ward had spent longer than he had treating her trying to induce him to pass on a volley of complaints both to Mr. Keene and to Minister Ross about the whole situation. Needless to say, Ari had not been persuaded, but he had done his best to soothe her distress, and when that failed, offered her his sincerest of sympathies and a potent sleeping draught.
What he wouldn't give for a ten-minute nap, he thought, wondering whether he might manage to barricade himself in the office for that amount of time. The fantasy was scuppered by the abrupt sound of a crash in the hallway, too close to ignore. Ari cast his office door a last longing look before turning on his heel and dashing back round the corner into the hall.
