10 March 1893 — Ministry of Magic

It wasn’t exactly rare for a medi-healer to get called to the Ministry of Magic however, it wasn’t something that happened on a weekly basis either. Mabel always liked entering via the large atrium. The grandness of the great hall seemed to dwarf even the most important figures in the Ministry. Mabel was used to feeling small next to many people, including all six foot something of Dory, however that particular figure had since been quite absent in her day-to-day life. Ever since their falling out last year, she’d missed him something terrible, and being called to the Ministry to help didn’t ease the knot that had been pulled tight in her stomach ever since they’d parted ways.

Moving her gaze from the fountain, Mabel held out the piece of parchment in her hand before opening her palm. The piece of parchment fluttered like a butterfly and flew towards the lift. Mabel followed, easily slipping in with the crowd heading back to the offices after their lunch break. The parchment settled to hovering in the air by her ear while the floors passed by them. With her healer’s kit in hand, the mediwitch kept her gaze down wards; nibbled at her lip hoping the parchment wouldn’t bring her to Dory. Soon enough, rustling by her ear told her it was time to step out of the lift, and Mabel hastened after the parchment before it sailed through open office doors. Figuring this was her cue, Mabel stepped through. “Did someone call for a medi-witch?”

---

Open to anyone at the Ministry!

  

---

Natty's work as a handiman had brought him to the Ministry that day, tending to one of the department's substantial (and rather chaotic) libraries. An ancient sticking charm had finally faded, leaving an entire wall of bookshelves precariously teetering, with no obvious way to reach the back of the shelves and replace the charm. Natty solved the problem fast enough. He shifted the shelves at the far end of the row, allowing him easy access to the rest. A fresh sticking charm, repositioning the shelves, and a bit of tidying up and he was done — nothing had fallen on anyone, nobody had been hurt.

Until a huge doxy leapt out of a pile of parchments and bit Natty's hand so deep it left a chunk of flesh almost completely detached. An exclamation of pain and alarm brought the library assistant rushing through, and the doxy was dealt with in a flash — leaving Natty bleeding and rather light-headed.

The assistant had fussed over him in an unhelpful panic. Natty insisted he could just apparate himself to the hospital, but his wand hand was his injured one, and, to be fair, the doxy venom was bound to disrupt his attempt at apparation. So he was forced to sit down, hand wrapped in a cloth used for dusting, feeling guilty and awkward as a mediwitch was summoned.

"I am sorry about this", he sighed as the young woman was ushered in by the anxious assistant, "I told them not to fuss."

The following 1 user Likes Jonathan Copper's post:1 user Likes Jonathan Copper's post
   Mabel Brighton

---

As she rounded the corner, Mabel could sense the nervous energy radiating off of the assistant. She was stumbling over her words, and quite pale as she led Mabel towards the injured patient. Fishing through her kit, Mabel pulled out a pepper up potion and handed it to the poor woman. Once they’d reached the man, Mabel could see that he wasn’t a Ministry employee at all, but looked like another person contracted to assist the Ministry in some way. At least that’s what the mediwitch surmised given the man’s lack of Ministry uniform or badge. A smile slid easily onto her face as she received the man’s apologies.

“On the contrary, sir you’re ensuring my day isn’t spent taking inventory of our potion supply closet!” she quipped, kneeling down onto the floor next to him. With a wave of her wand, she cast a basic diagnostic spell and waited for it to calibrate while she reached into her kit. “A basic pain potion for you to take while I figure out if it’s just your hand that’s injured. A doxy bite, wasn’t it?” There was a soft trilling emitting from the diagram hovering above the man, indicating the spell had done its work.

---

  

---

The calm young witch had a few kind words (it was a novelty indeed to be called sir by anyone), and Natty smiled, appreciating her bedside manner. He accepted the offered potion rather clumsily with his non-dominant hand, and drank it for the pain. The sting was pretty intense, but Natty had felt worse — and his overriding feeling was guilt at causing trouble by sitting here and bleeding away on Ministry premises.

"A doxy bite", he confirmed. Once his hand had been unwrapped from the rag he'd wrapped it up in, she'd see it had been a pretty deep bite. "I am feeling a bit... foggy", he admitted, wondering if that was doxy venom taking effect.

  

---

One glance at the diagnostic floating above the patient told her as much. “Your pulse is going quite quickly as well, though both fogginess and increased heart rate are to be expected with a doxy bite and doxy venom,” she replied, stooping to her kit once more to search for an antidote potion. Doxy bites, while extremely venomous, were easily felled by the antidote, and from what it sounded like the gentleman hadn’t been bitten too long ago.

Unstoppering it, she let the vial float in the air next to the man. “I warn you it won’t taste like pumpkin juice, but it’ll do the trick while I take a look at that bite.” Mabel smiled apologetically before gesturing to the wound. “May I? I’m Healer Brighton, by the way.”

---

  

---

At the information that his pulse was quicker than it should be, Natty glanced up at the hovering diagnostic and took a deep, quiet breath to try and steady himself. "That might be down to guilt", he admitted in something of a murmur. A worker of low standing making this kind of fuss in the Ministry... and not even a Ministry member himself. He felt gently ashamed, but kept his composure as always.

"Thank you. Healer Brighton." He accepted the potion and, well, it tasted the way things designed to help you always taste.

"Jonathan Copper", he introduced himself in turn, while obligingly removing the dusty rag from the deep doxy bite so she could inspect it.

  

---

She returned his introduction with a smile before taking the rag from him and putting it on the floor beside them. “Why the guilt, Mr. Copper?” She inquired, peering down at the bite. Sure enough there was a semi-circle that dotted his hand with jagged little punctures; Mabel winced. Having had the displeasure of experiencing a doxy bite at least once before, she sought to work quickly. Knowing Mr. Copper had the antidote already gave her peace knowing the worst of the effects had been quelled.

Reaching into her kit, she pulled out a small pot of salve and a clean cloth before dabbing at the wound to soak up the residual blood. “Is this not the first time you’ve encountered a doxy bite?”

---

  

---

"Ah, you know", was his utterly useless reply to the question as to why he was feeling guilty. He couldn't think of any way to explain his feelings without sounding like a fool. Maybe he was just that.

"I recall a bite back when I was a young man", he remembered for the first time in ages, intrigued that the younger Healer had guessed correctly. "It doesn't seem to be your first Doxy bite either?" She evidently knew what she was doing.

  

---

He seemed rather hesitant to explain much further, which saw the healer quirk another knowing smile. Having been at this profession for quite some time it was easy to spot when cautious patients who were reluctant to disclose exactly how many times they’d gotten themselves in trouble. Healers were hardly considered enforcers when it came to the law, so she’d long ago settled upon not pushing the patient one way or another. “The first one is always a shock,” Mabel commented mildly. “The rest are just as bad, but once you’re past the first one, sometimes it helps quell the anxiety if you can get to a healer fast enough.”

After waiting a few seconds for the blood to soak into the rag, Mabel peered under it. The semicircle of puncture marks appeared faintly before increasing in contrast as blood rose up to the surface. Thankfully the creature hadn’t bitten the flesh off completely, but she still winced again. “Mmm, perhaps some dittany first - yes, dittany,” she muttered to herself, reaching into the kit to pull out a glass vial.

Working quickly, Mabel unsealed it, scourgifying the rag and soaking it with some dittany, wincing again in sympathy: “Forgive me for the late warning - this will sting.”

The jar of salve had uncorked itself just in time; Mabel swiped a small amount on the wound. “It certainly isn’t. They’re daily easy wounds to treat, so they’re one of the first things we learn as a healer.”

As she spoke she reached into her bag to pull out a small roll of gauze. Folding the first two rotations of the roll into a square accordion, she placed the pad on the wound before taking the rest and wrapping it around.

---

  

---

It seemed Doxy bites were old hat to the young Healer, and Natty supposed it wasn't surprising to learn that dealing with them was a Day One sort of lesson for Healers. Doxies were hardly uncommon, after all.

It did indeed sting, but Natty was thirty-eight, working class, and widowed — he was used to pain. He didn't really feel up to explaining to Healer Brighton that the real pain came from knowing he'd caused a bother by getting into this situation. (Though something told him she'd empathise if he did explain.)

"So what attracted you to the profession?" Natty asked with mild interest, a bit of chatter as he watched her unroll the gauze. "Lifelong calling?"

  

---

This was the part that she enjoyed. The patient was stabilized, with a quick and efficient procedure which was a little bit mesmerizing, as she watched her hands pass the roll of cloth back and forth until it was secure. As she did so, Mabel pondered his question with a small hum signifying her train of thought. “I wouldn’t say lifelong calling. I like helping people though. Everyone has some chaotic times in their life when they wish they had help through it. I think I like the idea of helping someone through it, whether it be something like a doxy bite, or helping people through a catastrophe like the World’s Fair Market years back, or something of the like.” Those cases were the harder ones, the ones whose images she had a hard time shaking.

After severing the end of the roll, she tucked the tail into the folds, thinking with such a mild bite, by the time the bandage sought to unravel, he wouldn’t need it anymore. “That’s you all set, Mr. Copper!” Happy with her work, Mabel went about packing up her things. “Try not to move it too much if you can, but now that you’ve taken the antidote and dittany, you should be alright within the hour.” The next half hour, if she was being precise, but estimating healing times had always depended upon the patient. “Which brings me to my next question, what brought you to the Ministry today?”

---

  

---

If not mesmerising it was at least engaging to watch her work, hand over hand, as if she'd done this a thousand times before despite her young age. Evidently this was second nature to Healer Brighton, just as writing was to him.

"Well you're a rare thing, I'll tell you that", he muttered when she spoke of her drive to help people. "And me, I'm just a handiman. That's why I'm here, supplementing an overworked maintenance staff I suppose.".

  

---

“Mmm,” She mused, stifling a soft laugh. She’d been called many things but ‘rare’ wasn’t one of them. It made her smile. Closing her kit, she stood to face her patient who looked rather modest, so she regarded him with a direct gaze that she didn’t usually feel the need to employ often. “Why ‘just’ a handiman?” Her head tilted to the side in askance.

---

  

---

Ah, she caught him out — and indeed called him out — on his modesty, and he smiled sheepishly. "No, you're right. Not 'just' a handiman. It's a hard job, I don't mean to dismiss it."

  

---

She smiled approvingly as he gave in. Mabel wasn’t one for disagreeing with her patients, especially after she’d just healed them, but it seemed perfectly logical to not sweep being a handiman aside. “We all view our professions in some not so pleasant light sometime.” She offered gently. “The way I see it, you and I both seem to repair other peoples accidents, do we not?”

---

  

---

Her job here was done, but here she remained, talking him through something he hadn't realised he needed to be talked through. But she made a good point indeed. Several, in fact.

Natty nodded in agreement, and then could not help but re-define her job with a slight smile; "Healer and counsellor, hm."

  

---