March, 1891 — Hogsmeade Hospital

Being the Assistant Head instead of just another member of the healing rotation in his department still felt strange, and nevermind that he'd had the job for nearly a year now. He'd had two or three months of just learning the ropes with all the new paperwork and administrative tasks he was assigned to, then another few months of settling in and adjusting to it; it was only now that he was really starting to feel as though he had transitioned. One of the perks was that when it wasn't overwhelmingly busy, he had the option to close himself off in his office and get other things done. His pet project for the past month had been something he thought would be a more effective counterhex to certain categories of interval hexes which targeted the subject's physical body. It was understandably difficult to test properly when he was morally opposed to hexing people in order to conduct research, but he'd been working it through on paper and trying to anticipate any kinks. He had some good momentum built up with what he was doing, but of course it was entirely derailed when his quill broke. He was obliged to take some time to sharpen it again. As he was doing so, he noted a new name appear on the board in one corner of his office. The board was magically linked to the one in the Spell Damage hallway, and represented all of the patients currently checked into the ward. The name that had just appeared was L. Fisk.

"I'll take room twelve," he announced to the trainee healer in the hallway as he emerged from his office. He and Fisk had been in the same year in school and were reasonably friendly, so it seemed the least Victor could do to treat him personally. His friends and family didn't end up checked in to the Spell Damage ward often — fortunately — but when and if they did, he hoped he'd be able to address their issues himself. Not that he didn't trust the rest of his healers, but — well. There were some things one just wanted to handle themselves.

"You look a little worse for wear," he commented as he entered the room, giving Fisk a once-over. "What happened, exactly?"

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Leonid Fisk Clarissa Cosgrove

  

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Fabulous set by Lady!

A target managing to hit him with their spell was always embarrassing. Especially if it required a trip to Hogsmeade Hospital. He had been hexed to break out into boils that were both painful and embarrassing. Leonid did not think himself a vain man but he did enjoy his usually rather unblemished appearance.

"The man I was apprehending managed to hit me with some sort of elevated boil curse. The usual Cure for Boils potion was useless against it," he informed the other man. He didn't know if it was more embarrassing or not to have someone he was friends with be treating him. Especially for something normally so easily treatable at home. Hence the addition of detail of the usual potion not working, he didn't want Daphnael to think that he was completely useless. "I did capture him at least so I suppose that all was not for naught." Hopefully Daphnael could do something about this. His twins wedding was at the end of the month and she would probably murder him if he still had the boils by then.

  

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Set by MJ

"Well, bully for you," Victor teased lightly as he retrieved a notepad from the counter on the back corner. He hadn't brought his quill, of course, but fortunately someone else had left behind a self-inking quill on the counter. Don't mind if I do, Victor thought as he picked it up. Whoever had left it here was never getting this quill back. He could even use a charm to change the color of the feather after this so they wouldn't suspect him of having lifted it. Served them right for not cleaning the room properly between patients.

"What do you remember about the spell itself? Color, the gesture he used? Did you hear the incantation?" he asked, pen poised to take notes. A boil curse was usually fairly benign, but if this wasn't responding to the usual treatments it was worth figuring out exactly what the criminal had changed before they'd shot it off — and whether or not they'd done so intentionally. Most people were not magical geniuses, and their newly invented or modified spells weren't exceptionally original. It was trickier if the spell had strayed from its original variation accidentally, in fact, because the results were less predictable that way.

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Leonid flushed faintly though the fact was hidden by the boils on his face. He thought for a moment as Daphnel asked what he remembered about the spell itself. "The color from the wand was a violet color, he used a S gesture but cast non-verbally," he informed the healer. He hoped that was enough information for Daphnel to work with. He winced a little as the pain from the boils hit him once more. "His wand wood seems to have been Hawthorn if that helps."

  

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Set by MJ

Victor scribbled down some notes on the parchment and mumbled hmmmm. Nonverbal casting was a wrench in things, certainly. He hadn't expected Fisk to remember the spell that was cast verbatim, and he could still figure this out without knowing the incantation, but nonverbal magic was considerably more difficult than that with spells. The person who had hexed Fisk was no slouch, then, which meant they might have done something actually interesting with this spell. Interesting for Victor — potentially harder to fix and therefore more painful for Fisk.

Speaking of which — he belatedly realized he hadn't done anything to address the boils currently on Fisk's body, and perhaps he should. He glanced over in time to see Fisk wince and had to refrain from wincing himself — not his most conscientious healer moment, that. "Sorry, just a second," he said as he fished out his wand, then cast a spell which he waved over both Fisk's shoulders. "That's not a solution, just reducing the symptoms. It should make most of them go away. And then here, catch," he added, tossing a smooth stone that he'd fished out of a drawer beneath the counter in Fisk's direction. "Give my spell a second to settle in and then press that between both hands. It slows down the effects of ongoing spells. Should keep any new ones from popping up, long enough for me to figure out what to do about them."

He returned his attention to his notepad and scribbled out a few possibilities along one edge of the paper. The caster's wand would shouldn't have mattered, but you never could tell, so he wrote it down all the same. As he did, he couldn't help but wonder how Fisk knew. Could he deduce different types of wand wood by sight alone, or did they have the wand in custody and he'd examined it before coming to the hospital? Victor wouldn't have been eager to examine anything with boils breaking out across his face, but perhaps hit wizards were a different breed.

"I'd like to see the location you were hit," he added. "You can set the stone down if you need to undress a bit to show me."

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Leonid caught a smooth stone in his hands when it was tossed his way. He nodded to show he understood as he held the stone between his palms. He was grateful for it because he would rather not continue having boils spurting up all over the place.

"All right," Leonid said when Daphnel told him that he wanted to see where he had been hit. He put the stone down and unbuttoned his shirt. "Got me right in the stomach," he explained as he indicated the exact location. "The boils seem particularly painful in this small radius around where the spell made contact."

  

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Set by MJ

As Fisk finished unbuttoning his shirt, Victor pulled the stool in the room over to the edge of the bed, so that he could sit down and take a closer look. He cast a quick spell which produced a soft orb of white light, which he could push with his hand to anywhere he needed better lighting — what the hospital rooms were equipped with wasn't the best for trying to see fine detail. "The skin itself isn't discolored. That's a good sign," he pointed out, sliding his wand back into the pocket of his robes. Discolored skin could have indicated the spell was packaged together with another hex, one whose effects weren't quite so obvious.

A few of the boils on Fisk's chest were lingering, despite his earlier spell to soothe them. Victor retrieved his wand and cast again, directing his spell more pointedly at the problem spots, and then shrank back into the skin. It struck him as the boils disappeared and he put his wand away again that Fisk cut a fine figure with his shirt unbuttoned, once his skin was clear. This was not exactly relevant to his attempts to heal him. He probably ought to stay focused on the task at hand — this was unprofessional.

"Any tenderness around it aside from the boils?" he asked, reaching in to put two fingers on Fisk's skin near the position he'd indicated. "If I touch here?" (He would have been doing this as the next part of his examination anyway — it had nothing to do with Fisk having a surprising amount of muscle beneath his shirt).

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Leonid was content to let the healer do his thing though he felt an odd need to start up a conversation. The things they usually talked about wasn't coming to mind though as Daphnel looked over his skin. Then again, maybe the healer would need to concentrate so silence was best. "That's a relief," Leonid said with a chuckle when Daphnel informed him that the lack of discolored skin was a good sign.

He twitched when a Daphnel put two fingers on his skin. "Yes. It feels kind of like when I have a muscle," Leonid informed the other man after he had collected himself. "Got any ideas of how to dispel it?"

  

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Set by MJ

He pulled his fingers back from Fisk's skin but left his hand lingering in the air there for another moment. "A few," Victor replied, then turned his attention to Fisk's chest for another sweeping glance. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for. Maybe he wasn't looking for anything.

Shifting his attention back to the matter at hand, Victor leaned over to retrieve the notebook and picked up the quill again. "The color you described isn't quite right for a standard boil hex, so that's our first clue. Only clue, really, since he cast nonverbally. But I think that's enough to go on. Are there any other side effects you've noticed? Blurry vision, itching feeling on your insides? Hearing dogs bark when there aren't any around? Having to fight back any sudden urges to vomit or burst into song?"

Only one of these was a joke; the rest were legitimate side effects he might have suspected based on what other cannibalized spell the boils might have been combined with.

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Leonid briefly thought that there was something a little odd about the way Daphnel was looking at him but just as quick as the thought had occurred, he dismissed it. The other man was a healer and was obviously just looking for any other abnormalities. He didn't know what Daphnel might be looking at him oddly for aside from the boils problem anyway.

"No, none of that. I have not tormented anyone with my singing, fortunately," Leonid said, unable to help laughing a bit. He had seen such things happening before, both on the job and off. "No one would want that."

  

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Set by MJ

"I'm sure you're not as bad as you think," Victor replied with an easy smile. This was meant to be the sort of idle reassuring banter that healers used any time they needed to focus on something else; under normal circumstances he could carry on an entire conversation with someone while hardly hearing half of what they said, while in his mind he worked through different spell combinations until he came up with the right one to move forward with. He was evidently still distracted, though, because his tone there had sounded a touch too flirtatious for his own liking. Note to self, he thought as he chewed the inside of his lower lip. Next time I work with a hit wizard, have him wait until later in the examination to take his shirt off. Not that Victor was considering asking Fisk to button it back up. Not by a long stretch.

But back to the spell. If he wasn't experiencing any other side effects, then either the spell the criminal had combined with the boils hex was very slow acting, or it didn't have any. There were a few common spell adjustments people could make to strengthen existing spells, but the color change wouldn't have indicated any of them. The best theory he had at the moment was that it was combined with a spell that interfered with other magic in action — it would explain why Victor's first spell hadn't been sufficient to take off all of the boils in one go, and why this was too stubborn for a potion to fix. It also seemed like a fitting spell for a criminal to cast at a hit wizard — with sufficient strength, it could have even kept Fisk's wand from working properly. Fortunately, it seemed that hadn't happened if they were able to apprehend the man.

"Alright, let's give it a go," he said, hopping up from the stool and wielding his wand once again. "I'm going to cast two spells. If it's working as intended, your insides should feel warm during the first spell, like you've just had a big cup of cocoa. The second might be a little unpleasant, but it shouldn't hurt," he continued. He waited until Fisk was ready, then cast. From Victor's perspective, things seemed to go well enough, but it was hard to say for sure. "How did that feel?" he asked brightly.

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Daphnel was quite a friendly chap and Leonid always reacted positively to such people. "Maybe but that will be a secret I will keep," Leonid said with a smile.

He nodded as the healer told him what he was going to do. "Ready," he said as he waited for Daphnel to get started. It was as the healer had said, the first spell made him feel like he had just drank a big cup of cocoa. The second spell wasn't as pleasant but as Daphnel had said, it didn't hurt. "They both felt exactly as you described," Leonid said, running his hand down over his abdomen and finding that it felt quite normal again.

  

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Set by MJ

Victor's expression turned from pleasant and polite to a wide grin. He was always pleased to hear that his spells had worked — professional pride, partly, along with the thrill of knowing he'd just done something clever and gotten a chance to show it off.

"Great, then that's sorted," he said, tossing the notepad back towards the countertop where it landed with a thunk. "There may be some lingering boils popping up over the next twenty four hours, but they should resolve with the potion you were using before. If you get any side effects that crop up other than that, come back and see me."

He glanced at Fisk's torso again, then edged a bit closer. This was a bit of a risk, but — well, Fisk sort of had the aura of someone who might be interested, and a more obvious chance was unlikely to present itself. Victor reached out and brushed the back of his knuckles over the top of the other man's bare ribcage, then raised his eyes to meet Fisk's steadily.

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Leonid couldn't help but smile at how pleased Daphnel was with himself. He imagined figuring out a spell damage solution likely gave the other man the same feeling that capturing his target gave Leonid.

"I will be sure to do so," Leonid said with a nod, relieved that he had not had to stay overnight or anything. It had happened once before and Leonid was not the type to enjoy being confined to a hospital ward.

He watched curiously as the other man edged closer. There might as well have been question marks emerging from the top of Leonids head as Daphnel brushed his knuckled over the top of his ribcage. It gave him a little shiver that wasn't wholly unpleasant but he chalked it up to sensitivity as an aftermath of the boils going away. "Was there anything else I needed to look out for?"

  

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Set by MJ

Fisk was meeting his eyes, and... nothing. Well, this was awkward. Victor put his hand in his pocket as smoothly as he could, as though what he'd just done was an entirely normal thing to do. He could have made an excuse, and even had one ready on his tongue — oh, thought I saw a boil I'd missed, just checking — but Fisk hadn't asked, or even really reacted, so he wasn't sure whether he ought to call attention to the gesture. He offered a quick but insincere smile as he took a step back. "Nothing in particular. Common side effects might include headaches or feeling dizzy, but if that happens just drink a glass of water and lay down for a minute until it passes. If anything happens that you're concerned about, or that keeps you from working, feel free to come back."

He glanced at the door and ran his fingers over the quill he'd stolen in the pocket of his robes. "Well, I'll give you a minute to dress. Someone will be in shortly with some paperwork to sign for the visit."

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Fabulous set by Lady!

"All right, thank you," Leonid said as Daphnel rattled off the common side effects. He was already buttoning his shirt back as Daphnel continued speaking. "Sounds good. Hopefully next time I see you it will be in a more pleasant circumstance," he couldn't help chuckling as the man made his leave.

  

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Set by MJ