The teacup sat full on its saucer before her, the steam rising from its depths having long since dissipated. The tea was now much like the woman who didn't drink it: cold, and uncertain what to do with itself.

She had been at the Ministry of Magic when it happened, though only just—the socialite had intended to make an appearance at the candle lighting, a fundraiser, ironically, for the very hospital in which she now sat. The same hospital that was even now hiding her husband somewhere within its depths. The crowd, panicked, had been on the move already on her arrival, carrying her swiftly out again as soon as she went in. Rufina had not even thought of her husband in the frenzy—not that she would say as much aloud.

She had repaired to The Lady Morgana, where information had arrived in bits and pieces, some more true than others. Eventually, though, one of the footmen presented her with a note that shook her to the core.

Mr. Ernest Mulciber has been taken with urgency to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
That was all. No further detail.

Whatever their differences, Ernest Mulciber was her husband, a critical piece in the puzzle that was Rufina's life. She had been torn, then—to rush to him now, in a frenzy, or to arrive when she had had a chance to calm her nerves.

Rufina had elected the latter. She simply hadn't expected it to take so long.

She almost needn't have bothered—she had been at the hospital an hour. A welcome witch had ushered her not to her husband's bedside as she had insisted, but to the tearoom. The healers were overburdened, the insipid girl had informed her, and one would find her when they had a chance.

Rufina's patience was thin, her nerves shot, and her future less certain now than it had ever been before.

---

— Open to 1-2 others visiting the hospital in the wake of the Ministry Disaster —