19th June, 1888 — High Street

The Summer Solstice Festival hadn't opened like it was supposed to, because of magic, or the fog, or - well, something, Daisy hadn't been paying much attention. She didn't have a wand yet, so she couldn't really tell if she had lost her magic... But would she lose it forever? Did this mean she wouldn't be able to go to Hogwarts? And what about a wand: if she couldn't cast any spells, how would it be able to choose her? (Daisy kept forgetting she didn't have any money to pay for a wand, but in any case.)

She had been sent off - she thought (she hadn't actually been listening to the carnie lecturing her, because he had had a giant bug on his head and she had been hoping it would reach his forehead) - to put up some posters through town, even though no one would be bothering to visit the carnival now, and probably no one would be out to see the signs anyway. Daisy didn't even know where she was going, really, having only made the journey from the hospital to the park once, but she had scampered off proudly nevertheless.

It felt like she had been adventuring for hours and she had not stumbled across the notice board yet, but her life's goal at this very moment was instead hunting down the wand shop, because that was far more important than the posters stuffed the canvas bag over her shoulder. Maybe since magic wasn't even working they would just give her a wand for free! She would still rather like to swish it about, even if it did nothing else.

Daisy's eyes widened in excitement as she thought she made out a shop sign with a wand on it through the seas of grey, and she made a beeline for it, already buzzing. She was so excited that she flew blindly forwards, stepping straight into a lamppost with a dizzying crunch and keeling over backwards onto the street.

---

  

Without magic, work became more tiring to Clifford, and all the new hospital staff from London didn’t help, they only added to this disruption of Clifford’s routine. Nice, predictable, and relatively safe routine. Now - after a particularly wearisome shift - he was walking home. Some complained about not being able to apparate, but for Clifford it made no difference - he knew as a healer how good fresh air was for one’s health, so he mostly walked in Hogsmeade. Unless it was sunny, of course, as the sun was known to be harmful.

This time, however, the sun didn’t matter much, as barely any light could pierce the thick fog that rolled over all of Hogsmeade. Clifford didn’t mind the visibility problem, as he knew the way from home to hospital perfectly, walking it every day. So he thought about tea that awaited him home, his legs moving on autopilot, when suddenly a sound of falling body brought him back to his senses.

Could it be that creatures from the Forbidden Forest used the fog as cover to attack Hogsmeade residents? If so, it was exactly Clifford’s specialization to help those poor souls. Worried, he trotted to the source of the sound. What he found was a girl lying on the street, seemingly unconscious. Clifford even recognized her as one of the carnies who stayed at Hogsmeade Hospital for caranthine. Could it be that Magical Bugs Department missed an illness, as they were short on magic?

Despite the fear of infection, Clifford stayed with the girl, placing his bag under her head and checking her pulse. She was alive and regaining consciousness, so Clifford tapped her on the cheek and asked, “Miss! Can you hear me?”

---

  

When Daisy came to, her head was throbbing and her body sore against the street. Someone was prodding her.

She squinted, trying to force the world back into focus.

"You're a healer," she intoned excitedly - her voice a little slurred - because she recognised him! She'd been stuck in the hospital for so long, and the only people she knew at all were the hospital folks. Funny that he should be here! (Unless she was back in the hospital? Maybe she was only dreaming, and she'd never left?!)

Still, Daisy looked up at him bright-eyed, and attempted to reach up and tap his cheek like he'd just done to hers. That'd be how she checked he was real, and she was really out here. Between her throbbing head and the way his face was swimming in and out of vision, though, she was quite confused. "You have two noses. Are healers supposed to have two noses?" She'd never seen a two-nosed person before, and she lived at the carnival with all sorts of oddities.

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There was so many inconveniences caused by the for, so much talk about it, and it was the most visually noticeable thing outside, so it was the first thing for Clifford to blame. The fog took away magic, maybe it could do the same with consciousness, as well? The papers mentioned the risk of children becoming squibs, what if this was one of the symptoms?

With such thoughts on his mind, when the girl mentioned Clifford had two noses, he didn’t think about double vision at first. Instead, he went through all the less plausible options that could somehow involve the fog. And as he considered he could have two noses indeed due to some redistribution of magic, he touched his nose with his fingers, making sure there was just one.

”That’s totally in order,” he replied, not to challenge the girl’s view yet. He didn’t want to repeat her mistake aloud and agree with it, so he chose the vaguest response he could think of. Maybe she wasn’t ready for her personal two-nosed reality being crushed. Not yet. ”Can you remember what happened?”

---

  

She liked this healer. This healer was nice. There was something calm about him, friendly and safe and non-threatening, and she liked his face too. It was handsome, Silence thought, even with two noses.

(He hadn't denied it, so it must be true. Funny, that! Two noses. She wondered what the second one did. Maybe they pointed in different directions. Maybe four nostrils were better than two.)

He'd asked if she could remember what happened, and Daisy broke into a toothy grin as she peered up at him from where she was still lolling on the ground, feeling a grand desire to impress him. "I can remember all sorts of things that happened, in fact," she said proudly, not quite getting at what he'd meant. "People think I don't, say I've got brains like a sieve, but that's only if I'm not listening, see. When I do I've got a spiffin' memory. I'm even sure I remember things from when I was a baby, how about that?"

Not that her days of infancy in a prison were much different from her days of childhood in the workhouse, so maybe everything had just blurred into everything else.

---

  

The girl’s speech sounded natural, she clearly had no difficulties thinking or talking, which was a good sign. She also either accepted Clifford’s two-noseness or regained her sense of reality. Or maybe she was just too excited to answer the healer’s question, and noses were of lower priority. Either way, the change of topic was welcome.

”That’s surely a remarkable memory,” Clifford smiled. The girl’s childhood could be interesting, but asking about it would hardly help to learn what had just happened with her. ”You remember things happened so long ago, but what about more recent things? What is the last thing you can remember, for example?” A second later, Clifford noticed a ‘loophole’ that would probably render his question useless. ”Aside from our conversation, of course.” From his experience, kids often took questions literally, and a recent unconsciousness could add to that, too.

---

  

She melted with pleasure when he called her memory remarkable. She barely ever got praised, and it was a terribly wonderful feeling! The thrill was almost enough to forget she was, somehow, still sore all over and lying on the ground.

She grinned goofily up at him, taking a little longer to process his question, because now she wasn't exactly certain whether it was her brain or her eyes that was making the world swim before her. Daisy blinked a few times, thinking hard. "Oh!" She exclaimed, as her eyes landed on a shop sign across the street, "I know, I know! I finally saw the wand shop, the one over there, and I was going to get a wand of my very own -" (or so she had hoped, illogically) "and then - I -" Her eyes flickered to the lamppost she clearly hadn't dodged, not wanting to admit her clumsiness to this handsome healer man! He wouldn't think she was remarkable at all anymore, if she said that. "And now my head hurts," she whined, screwing up her forehead before looking up him helplessly.

---

  

The situation became clear to Clifford. It could only be a mugging.

He expected as much when the fog first came. Poor visibility and therefore victim awareness, complications for Law Enforcement due to lack of magic, and equal footing for low-lives and exceptional wizards in terms of personal defense. It was only a matter of time until crimes in Hogsmeade skyrocketed, Clifford thought. But even at his most pessimistic he couldn’t imagine thugs attacking a child. The healer clenched his fists so that knuckles went white, but soon relaxed, reminding himself that anger was a sin. But the situation was so outraging that Magical Jesus would probably forgive him at this moment of weakness, he hoped,

”Can you please check your belongings? Is anything missing?” Clifford asked. He was going to write a letter to the Department of Law Enforcement and wanted as much details as possible. Perhaps it would even be possible to track the thug by the things he had stolen. Clifford also hoped that an attack on a child could start a decriminalization crusade in Hogsmeade. To make Slums and Pennyworth less appalling to Jesus.

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   Silence Daisy

Daisy sat up cautiously, entirely confused by his next question, and how on earth that could relate to her whining about her head hurting or getting a wand, but not about to argue with the handsome healer man. She patted the ground around her and then caught sight of the canvas bag on the floor nearby, tugging it over by the strings into her lap and looking down at it unenthusiastically.

"It's just posters," Daisy said, riffling through the rolled up sheets and pulling out a few to check the bottom of the bag, just to show him she was following his instructions to the letter! "For the carnival. Nothin' fancy. I didn't get to buy the wand yet," she repeated, looking at him with sad puppy eyes. Her hand scraped at the bottom of the canvas. "There might've been a few knuts down there, too?" She said, coming up empty-handed with a shrug. (The loose bits of change might, admittedly, just have fallen through the small snag at the bottom of the bag, but Daisy hadn't noticed it before.) "But that's all I had. Why d'ya ask?"

---

  

It was even worse than Clifford’s least optimistic expectations. The only things of value the girl had were a few knuts, and now they were gone. The pettiest crime ever. The mugger had to be really desperate.

On the bright side, the girl didn’t suspect she was mugged. Better for her, less negative experience. So Clifford wasn’t going to reveal the painful truth to her. ”I just thought some things could fall out,” he lied. ”Happens to me sometimes when I run. Or fall.”

As Clifford gave writing a letter to the Department of Law Enforcement a serious though, he realized he hadn’t yet asked the girl’s name. And it was something he definitely needed to file a better report. ”So, what’s your name?”

---

  

"Oh," Daisy said, wondering. "I'm always droppin' things," she admitted, scrunching her face up in hasty sheepishness at having admitted this to the healer - there she went, ruining all the work she'd tried for to impress him! She wanted him to think she was intelligent and elegant and wondrously graceful and - well, pretty was maybe a stretch. But even so! She could be a real proper damsel in distress. Oh, why hadn't she pretended to stay knocked out! Maybe he'd have scooped her up in his arms and carried her off, or had to - kiss her, or something -

"I bet you hardly ever fall," she countered, raising her eyebrows knowingly as she staggered to her feet again, brushing down her shabby dress. He was only being nice. "My name's Silence Daisy," Daisy said, pleased that he'd asked but less pleased that she had such a stupid name, a stupid name of her own making, like a fool! "What's yours?"

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”You’re right,” Clifford admitted, ”I don’t fall that often nowadays. But I used to when I was a kid.” He didn’t fall as much as he implied, though. He was only being nice.

The girl stood up and introduced herself. A bold move, considering her condition, Clifford thought. So he got ready to catch Silence in case she fell. People who recently had head injuries could experience some dizziness, so Clifford wanted to be safe. Falling down twice in such a short period of time was too much. ”How are you feeling? Can you walk?” Silence seemed easy to carry if necessary.

Worrying so much about the girl’s ability to move on her own, the healer almost forgot to introduce himself. “I’m Clifford Goyle,” he smiled.

---

  

She beamed at his remark, that he'd used to fall over as a boy. That gave her hope! That she would grow up to be a beautiful dazzling graceful woman, with two right feet and suddenly amazing dancing ability and she would get to waltz about ballrooms somehow -

Anyway. She was not beautiful or dazzling or graceful now, but at least she had the special excuse of a throbbing head for that! She felt - decent - to be on her feet again, but at the healer's questions she changed tack a little, pretending to falter as she tested her balance. "I - I'm not sure," Daisy admitted. "I'm still a little dizzy -" She leant towards the healer - Mr. Clifford Goyle, he said - reaching out a hand to cling onto him as though that would stop the swaying. Sometimes she could be clever, see.

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   Clifford Goyle I

Daisy did her best to stay up, but it was clearly not enough, so Clifford caught and supported the girl when she was about to fall. The thug must have hit her hard. ”This won’t do,” the healer sighed. ”I can’t let you walk in such condition.” Clifford held the girl tight enough now to make it impossible for her to fall again.

But this could be for the best. Kids were often overconfident and refused adults’ help on principle, so if Daisy could walk, she would probably be on her way, stumbling and maybe even crashing into things. She could even fall unconscious again. Now, on the other hand, Clifford was about to get the poor girl to the Hospital, where she would be safe and sound, and might even recall some details about the attack. ”Let me carry you to the Hospital,” the healer offered, not yet lifting the girl up. He didn’t want to make any surprising movements and waited for a confirmation from Daisy.

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Once upon a time, the carnival had had some jousting-on-winged-horses for a show, but Daisy had never met a real knight-in-shining armour until now, and she was so thrilled she didn't feel even a tiny bit bad for lying to him like this. It wasn't lying, just... pretending. For a good cause.

She turned away from the lamppost - it may be Only A Lamppost, but it was like it knew she was a giant liar - and into his hold, nodding up at him helplessly. Daisy supposed she might have protested - said no, I'm perfectly fine, and I have a job to do, Sir - or at least insisted that he only drop her off at the edge of the park so that she could go and lie down on her own cot, instead of go back to the hospital where they'd spent all that time in quarantine already... but maybe another visit to the hospital was worth it, if she was going to get carried there in his arms. Like a real life princess!

"Alright," Daisy deigned, in her Best Princess Tone. "But I can't stay there long, Mr. Goyle, sir. I've got things to do." (She'd stay there for days, if he wanted, but she thought she'd better not say as much.)

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”I promise, it shouldn’t take long, miss,” Clifford reassured Daisy as he lifted her up. The girl mentioned she had things to do, but he doubted it could more important than her health and crime report. ”I just want to be sure there is no lasting damage. Besides, as a healer, I would advise you against doing anything of importance at the moment anyway.” To make sure he didn’t doubt the girl’s competence in general but rather worried about the injury, he added, ”With all that dizzy feeling.”

Daisy was tiny, and the distance to the Hospital wasn’t that long, so despite Clifford wasn’t particularly strong, he was sure the trip would go smoothly. Without breaks to rest and catch his breath.

To somewhat distract the girl from pain and dizziness, Clifford asked, ”What is that you need to do, miss? Secret carnival preparations? If you don't mind me asking, of course.” Daisy could be an acrobat, he thought. Or a falconer. Although her red hair would suit a fire-breather, Clifford doubted the girl was one. And definitely not a fake fortune teller, she seemed too straightforward and honest for that.

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