January 29th, 1891 — Hogsmeade Hospital

Gideon was still blind as a bat, which meant he hadn't read the article printed in the paper that morning, but the intern who had come in to deliver his breakfast had told him the long and short of it. It was quite distressing, for a few reason. He hadn't been aware that the Potts shop had been damaged by his foolishness before this, and was already wracking his brain trying to think how he might make amends. He tried very hard to be a good neighbor, and the Potts were such a pleasant family. Luckily no one had been injured, aside from himself. What was even more distressing than the Potts damage was the fact that it was in the paper at all. Billie would have heard, then, and he was so far incapable of picking up a quill to reassure her that everything was fine.

Miss Montague had stopped by that morning with well-wishes and a bouquet of flowers — likely not the convalescence gift she would have chosen if she knew he couldn't see them, but a well-intentioned gift all the same — and owls had been arriving periodically, contributing to a growing stack of letters he couldn't read. He was hoping for a visit from Quincey Honeyduke — the only person who might understand his urgency in seeing whether one of the letters was from Billie, and whom he might trust to write a response in his stead to calm her down — but the next person who entered was his healer once again.

"Good morning, Miss," he said, before exchanging the same superficial question-and-answer he'd had with the intern that morning. How are you feeling? Any change since last night?

"Miss Chevalier," he said hesitantly, when there was a break in the questions. "I know this is a terrible imposition, but — given the circumstances — I wonder if you might take a look at the mail I've gotten and tell me if you see one from a little girl named Billie," he said, cheeks flushing slightly. "She's got awful handwriting," he added, to give Miss Chevalier some clue to decipher which envelope might be hers.

Tabitha Chevalier @"Elsie Beauregard" (Feel free to ignore until our other one is done if you want! Was just feeling musey after getting letters ^^)

  

Not much had changed in the last twenty-four hours in regards to Mr. Ollivander's condition, but it had kept Tabitha up last night pouring over books and other cases of a similar nature. If there were bags under her eyes, the veela blood covered them up, but didn't erase the fatigue from her voice.

Upon checking in with Mr. Ollivander, she went through the usual list of questions, making notes, she was about to ask to take another look, but he seemed to have something else on his mind.

"Oh, it's no imposition at all." Tabi assured him as she set down her notes. What she said and what she felt were two very different things however. She felt like it was a huge invasion of his privacy. Still, he had asked, so she didn't want to disappoint. Gently she picked up the stack of letters and filtered through them until she thought she found one that might fit his description.

"I think I've found one, do you want me to, um, read it for you?" She asked hesitantly.

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He could hear the undercurrent of hesitation in her voice, and he was sympathetic to what a strange request it was. He ordinarily never would have asked, and if the situation had been even a little less dire, he would have put it off — but since he didn't actually know what the Prophet story had said, precisely, and he didn't know what Billie might have heard, he was eager to see how she'd responded to the news. Gideon's heart skipped a beat when she indicated she'd found the letter. Any news was better than no news, he thought, so that he could stop fretting over whether or not she'd heard yet, but he felt awful that she'd been worried enough to write him in the first place.

Did he want Miss Chevalier to read it? Gideon hesitated. He hardly knew this woman, and didn't relish the thought of sharing anything with her that was so personal. It was dangerous, too, as he couldn't be sure exactly what Billie might have written until after the letter had been read. He didn't think she'd say anything explicit, but he couldn't be sure. Miss Chevalier definitely shouldn't be burdened with anything even approaching the truth of his relationship with Billie, and it wouldn't be fair to his daughter to violate her privacy in that way. She had no reason to believe a letter she wrote to him might be seen by anyone else, and if she was worried, she might not have been quite as careful as she would have been otherwise.

But on the other hand, she was worried, and Gideon was, in turn, worried about Billie. Quin may or may not come at some point today — he was a good friend, but he did have his own life to manage, his own shop, and could hardly be expected to sense something was amiss and drop everything to rush to Gideon's side to help — and he couldn't just sit here wondering what the letter said until he arrived.

"If you wouldn't mind," he said eventually, with a frown. "I'm sorry, I know it's a terrible imposition — this is well outside your responsibilities as a healer," he continued, shaking his head. "But I would like to know what she's said."

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"No, no, no, it's fine, as long as you're sure." Tabi sorted out her voice, keeping the tone even. Her job was to take care of her patient, even if that meant reading his post for him when he could not. Tabs firmly believed in treating the whole person, not just the ailment or injury. So as weird as it sounded, she was going to handle it professionally.

Opening the letter, Tabi took a step back from the table, perching herself on the small seat reserved for visitors while she skimmed through the letter. Nothing crazy at least, just a few misspelled words, perfectly legible though and the meaning was not lost. It was sort of endearing really. "She seems quite worried about you," Tabi began, more to herself than aloud, but read the letter from start to finish for him, before tucking it back onto the pile.

"Would you like me to pen something back to her for you?" It was none of her business of course, but she would hate to thing that this young lady was starving for news and received none. That would set anyone into a tizzy. "Or is there someone else I can send word to?" That she had done before, it was no problem.

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Gideon caught himself holding his breath as she started to read the letter, and had to force himself to exhale. He could almost see the way the words would look on the page, in her familiar handwriting — could guess at her misspellings. He was touched that she'd offered to come help, but was dreading that she might actually try to do it. He could just picture her packing up a bag with things she considered necessities — candy and bowtruckle bait, perhaps — and then setting off into the Forbidden Forest in the vague direction of Hogsmeade.

"Would you?" he asked immediately, obviously relieved. It might be better for Billie if someone she was familiar with wrote to reassure her, but the logistics of having Miss Chevalier write to someone who would then write to Billie without any context seemed too complicated. Getting a faster response was better, he decided, even if it came from an unfamiliar healer, which might add to her worry in and of itself. "If you could just say that I'm —" he was about to say fine, but hesitated at the last moment; he still had no guarantees that his sight would ever be restored to him, and while he was not ready to give up hope just yet he was reluctant to use such a superficial word when such a monumental factor was still an unknown.

"I'm in very good hands, here, and I don't need her to leave Hogwarts to help," he decided. After a beat, he added, "And that I'll write her myself as soon as I can."

  

Anticipating his reply, Tabi had pulled her personal notebook from her apron and was pulling out a quill as he started. She dated and addressed the letter quickly, her tidy scrawl neat across the page. She printed for the girl's benefit, hoping it would be easy enough to read.

Miss Billie,

Mr. Ollivander would like you to know he in good hands here at the hospital and that you do not need to leave Hogwarts to help.

She hesitated to add anything else that was not asked, but figured a little introduction wouldn't hurt.

My name is Miss Chevalier and I will be the healer taking care of both Mr. Ollivander and his post while he is under my care. Please do not hesitate to write!

Best,
Tabitha Chevalier

"I added a small bit about my role, if that's alright, otherwise I can take it out." Tabs could tell Mr. Ollivander had chosen his words carefully, so she didn't want to overstep. "Do you want to sign it?" She offered hesitantly.

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"Of course," Gideon agreed. That seemed entirely appropriate, under the circumstances. Billie would want to know who this strange young woman was and why she was responding to his letters for him. He might have thought to say something along those lines himself, when dictating to her, but he wasn't sure exactly what words he would have chosen. It was difficult to describe someone when they were standing right there listening to you do it, wasn't it? And the kind of reassurances he might have given Billie (she's very kind, she seems very clever, I'm sure she'll have me settled in no time and she'll take exceptionally good care of me until then so please, don't fret) might have made the woman blush. Better that she'd written it herself, really.

She asked about the signature, and he hesitated. It was a good idea, as far as the letter went. It would reassure Billie that he was alive, and not in a coma, or delirious, or any of the other reasons she might have supposed he wasn't writing his own letters. He was sure he could still manage it; he'd been signing his name his whole life and his hand remembered the movement even if his eyes couldn't watch the strokes. But it was quite a bit to ask of poor Miss Chevalier.

"You'd have to put my hand on the paper," he pointed out uncertainly.

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Relieved that he was not opposed to her addition, Tabitha signed it herself and then puzzled out how best to get him to be able to add his as well. Standing, she moved toward the bed and perched herself on the very edge next to him, though facing him. "My notebook was the only paper I had, but I will take it out and send it as soon as I finish here." She assured him.

Gently she reached out for his right hand, assuming he was right-handed without actually thinking about it. She pressed the quill into his hand and then moved the notebook forward, giving him time to adjust accordingly. When it appeared like he was ready, she tentatively covered her hand with his and moved until the quill was pressed against the notebook she held out, before removing her hand back to her lap. All he hand to do was sign.

Retrospectively, this was not as awkward as she was making it out to be. Tabitha had, simply by the nature of her occupation, been very up close and personal with her patients and she was making a big deal out of nothing. At least she hoped so, she would hate to come across as unprofessional.

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He was vaguely aware of her movements because he could hear the shuffle of her clothing, but his senses still weren't nearly as fine-tuned as they ought to have been. He didn't realize how close she was until she'd suddenly touched his hand, and it was all he could do to grasp the quill and not drop it in surprise. He was being rather ridiculous about this, he thought. She was acting in a professional capacity, doing something he'd asked her to do. There wasn't anything intimate or improper about this, actually, but her touch still made his heart skip a beat all the same. It must have had something to do with the fact that he couldn't see her, he thought. She was still a stranger, to an extent — and this feeling of being touched unexpectedly in the dark was vaguely reminiscent of the sort of trouble he'd used to get into, before he'd found Billie.

"Thank you, Miss," he said after he'd signed his signature at the bottom of the page, hopefully in more or less a straight line. "That's — I hope it will make her feel a little better about it," he said, with a frown. "I wish I had some... well, you know, some good news for her, but I suppose this'll have to do."

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Tabi withdrew as soon as he'd added his signature. She smiled sadly, simply because she could sympathize with his worries. It must have been terribly disorienting not only to lose his sight, but the ability to do simple things like write a letter and sign his name independently.

"My pleasure, Mr. Ollivander, I'll send it out right away." She assured him again. "Should she write back, you could tell her I've narrowed down the field of possibilities, but I'm still waiting on the recipes from your shop. That will be a good step in the right direction." Once she knew what she was truly up against in regards to what may have spilled, she could start working on the right treatment for him. She was thinking she might be able to make a combination of drops for his eyes and an antidote for him to take that might speed things up.

"Was there anything else I can do for you?" She'd check back in on him before she left for the day, but she couldn't tarry here all morning.

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"You mean you could tell her," he pointed out, with a half-smile for the first time since entering the hospital. He was happy to hear that she'd made some progress on the situation, but he didn't expect that he would be able to read and write again by tomorrow morning — and if he was, the fact that Miss Chevalier had narrowed things down would hardly still be relevant news.

"I'm sure you'll get the recipes soon, Miss Chevalier," he continued. "Macrae is very dedicated to his work. His work just doesn't typically include managing my medical care." He let out a short huff of breath, somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh of exasperation at the situation in which he'd placed himself. "But, to answer your question, no. I can't imagine I'll need anything else. You've already done more than you know," he said, thinking of Billie.

  

"I'll keep an eye on the post, both for the recipes and for a letter in response to this one then." Tabitha smiled in return as a reflex, painfully unaware that he couldn't see it, but also oddly thankful at the same time. It was a strange sort of conundrum. Once the emergency of the situation had worn off, Tabitha had realized it was the first well, comfortable conversation she'd ever had with a gentleman. Mr. Ollivander's inability to see her, though clearly terrible for him and she planned to rectify it as soon as possible, if at all possible, was actually oddly good for her. Tabi felt guilty even thinking it, but she kind of enjoyed it.

Moving to gather her things so she could send off the letters, Tabi floated toward the doorway, but not before giving Mr. Ollivander a pat on the shoulder. "I'll be back later to check in." She assured him with another smile, hoping he could at least hear it in her voice.

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