January 17th, 1891 - Hogsmeade Hospital

Noble's contract with Hogsmeade Hospital was one that he treasured; it was the most substantial evidence of his success as a potioneer. With little else bringing him joy at the moment, his job, at least, could reliably be counted on to be something he loved. Noble was accordingly always looking for little ways to keep, strengthen, and expand his contract with Hogsmeade Hospital, and the administrators largely knew it.

So. He had metaphorically jumped when he received a note from the hospital; they needed an outside opinion on some of the new antidotes, to make sure the potions were up to snuff. Quality-checks were pretty simple, but if the hospital was thinking of him, that was good. He cleared time on his calendar, signed the payment contract, and scheduled an appointment. He recognized the name of the healer, but didn't place it until he saw her in the waiting room of the Potion & Plant Poisoning department and felt vague chest pains.

Miss Tabitha Chevalier was a half-veela; she was also a healer. She was the healer he was meeting today. She was incredibly, unbelievably beautiful, like a ballerina out of a painting.

"Miss Chevalier," Noble said, standing up from his seat. He wanted very badly to look at the spot where her collarbones surely were, underneath her robes, but resisted. Miss Chevalier had been in his year in school, but they had never interacted much then, and any resistance to half-Veela that Noble developed in Hogwarts had long since vanished. He pressed his hands against the thighs of his trousers as if the action would steal him. Couldn't they have sent him to a different healer today? "I'm here to quality check the antidote to common poisoning with you."

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Tabitha Chevalier @"Elsie Beauregard"

  

The life of a healer was far from dull. Tabs was sure every ward had their extraneous responsibilities, but as a Potion and Plant Poisoning healer, the addition task of ensure the hospital had enough of the antidotes and potions required for what they needed was always a little daunting. Thankfully the ward itself was quiet so the floor was taken care of by a colleague while Tabi had been delegated to meet with Mr. Greengrass regarding some new antidotes.

Truthfully, Tabi was pleased to know the hospital contracted out some of the work, it wasn't as if they always had free time to do such jobs themselves, but when quality checks were one of those things, she had to wonder if they were sticking it to the staff. It was entirely unlike her to think that way and so the thought came as quickly as it went. For now she would be thankful for Mr. Greengrass' expertise on the matter. She remembered him fairly easily from school, devoted to his studies and his family, easy to speak with, and friendly. Tabs hadn't ever really had cause to talk to him outside of class however.

"Mr. Greengrass, how lovely to see you again." She smiled slowly. "Yes of course, follow me to the storeroom." She detected a hint of nerves and that was likely her fault; there were only two reactions men tended to have toward her, flirt or fumble. It was something that had always made her self-conscious. In an effort to ease the discomfort, she motioned for him to follow her. "Have you been well?" A little harmless chitchat sometimes helped.

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absolute beauty by MJ

She was so impossibly beautiful that Noble felt as if he would keel over, and she wasn't even trying. He wanted to kiss down her neck until the point where her robes met skin; he wanted to peel the robes off of her. And he knew - he knew that this was a desire he had because of her veela blood. But it had him nervous, especially because he usually only had those thoughts about THE GIRL, and was able to chase them off when they involved another person.

But not Miss Chevalier.

He followed her to the store room. "Very well," Noble said agreeably, "The mourning period for my father just ended, and we've been poking back into society." Perhaps a bit morbid, but there was nothing else to be said, and he was working hard to keep up a filter with her. "And yourself, Miss Chevalier?" If they kept up the small talk, then he would be able to stop himself from thinking about the curves of her body, and those few hairs that had fallen loose, touching her beautiful neck.

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Tabi knew it was rude, but she tried not to give poor Mr. Greengrass too much eye contact; it only made it worse. "I'm an incredibly sorry to hear that." She did look at him now, an earnest remorse in her eyes, but only briefly as she turned the corner toward her ward. Had she known about his father's passing? Unlikely, but she felt sorry for him all the same.

"I've been busy," She admitted. "Long hours, as I'm sure you can imagine." Which she preferred, so she didn't have to go home and endure Felicity's disapproving eyes, but it wore on her after a while. "Here we are," She paused outside the door to the large storeroom that held the antidotes he was here to look at.

They were lined up on the large wooden table within, labeled and organized exactly as she knew they were supposed to be. None of the ones being checked today were of her own brewing, but she supposed she appreciated the thoroughness of the hospital to have them double checked.

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absolute beauty by MJ

Her condolences rolled off of him like water off of a duck's back; these were the things that people said to him, now, and he could never tell how genuine they were. Miss Chevalier seemed to mean it, at least, (although with her being so beautiful it was hard to tell her sincerity-level), and Noble did not have to come up with a response before they were at the storeroom.

Noble stepped inside. There were so many shelves, in here, he had a flash of fantasy - he could press Miss Chevalier up against the shelves and kiss her, and - he shoved it down. Neither of them really wanted that, and now that they had potions to look at, he could think about things other than the shine of her hair and the curve of her neck.

"I've always found it interesting," he said thoughtfully, "How difficult it is to make the antidotes, as compared to the poisons themselves."

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Tabitha hovered near the door, hands folded neatly at the front of her apron, to minimize her distraction factor. She would hate for something to go amiss because she was causing him to be unfocused. Not to mention without another person present, they two of them were not supposed to be near one another.

"I always enjoyed the challenge," She admitted softly with a smile. "Creating something is easy, undoing the creation is not." Brewing a potion with a careful recipe was the easy part. When you happened to be on the other side, trying to figure out a potion that you did not brew, that is when things became more difficult. Tabitha had never shied away from a challenge, there had always been a thirst to prove herself as something@mdash; anything other than just a pretty face.

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absolute beauty by MJ

"Mm," Noble hummed, looking over the potions. "The color on this section seems right -" he said, gesturing to the teal-colored bottles on the left side of the table. He picked up one of the potions from the bottom right corner. "- But I'm not entirely sure I like the color on these. What do you think?" It was a shade darker than the other potions; Noble had no idea why, but it did not look right to him.

He had now gone an entire minute without thinking about kissing her; this was somewhat of an achievement.

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From her position near the door, Tabi could not quite see what it was that Mr. Greengrass was referring to, but she assumed he knew what he was talking about. "Has it settled? Give it a little shake." Sometimes, as with all mixed liquids, the ingredients started to separate after time. Perhaps a little shake up would reset everything.

She didn't dare get any closer to investigate, leaving it generally up to his expertise, though she would have liked to have a look to see what exactly it was he was referring to. Tabi loved her work, every aspect of it, she wouldn't have chosen the ward she had if she couldn't handle her potions, but since Mr. Greengrass was the hired expert here, she didn't want to step on his toes on this particular matter.

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absolute beauty by MJ

Noble plucked the potion off the table and gave it an experimental shake as per Miss Chevalier's suggestion. Much to his alarm, a puff of smoke emerged from the potion, squeezing it's way between the cork and the glass of the bottle. "Well, that's not normal," Noble said, frowning slightly. "Can you give one a try?"

Maybe it was just this one, or maybe the potion was just dusty. One could hope.

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Well, that was mildly alarming. Tabitha had used one of those antidotes just earlier this week. Sliding forward, she pulled a vial from the furthest end of the table from him. It too look discolored, but she gave it a turn upside down and back, causing it to emit little poof of smoke. The odd thing about it was that it smelled oddly sweet?

"Do you smell that?" In her intrigue, Tabi nearly held it straight out to him, but instead set it down and pushed it along the table, backing up again to give him space. Tabi had to wonder if someone had tampered with them or if there was a whole batch that had somehow gone off or been brewed incorrectly. Was she going to have to start double checking every potion she planned to use? That thought was a little off-putting to say the least. At least this likely cemented Mr. Greengrass' contract with the hospital.

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absolute beauty by MJ

Miss Chevalier more nearby and in motion caught Noble's senses again; he shook his head a little, just to clear it, before smelling the potion. Noble wrinkled his nose. "Why does it smell... sugary?" he said; he hadn't encountered this before, and was not sure if it actually meant something bad for some of the brewed potions. Of course, the only way to ensure that was to test it, and he wasn't sure that would actually help them.


"Who brewed these, do you know?"

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"That is what I was wondering." She agreed easily, backed against the far shelf from him, though still quite curious about the whole thing. "I'm not sure, I haven't been on brewing in a while. If there are dates on them, I'm sure it could be held against the schedule to find out." Tabi was most often sequestered to the floor for her "delightful bedside manner," which really meant none of the male patients would complain about her and pretty much agree to whatever she said. It wasn't a bad tactic by her superiors, but it didn't speak much as to what they actually thought her capable of.

"It smells as if one of the ingredients was either off when used or swapped for something they thought was comparable." It was close to the right color after all, but potions and ingredients were finicky at best and downright disastrous at the worse. An ingredient being bad or changed could compromise the integrity after a while.

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absolute beauty by MJ

"I don't suppose we have any idea if this batch works?" Noble said; the cogs were turning in his head. If it did work, then someone had probably-accidentally made an important discovery in potioneering; if it didn't work, they could poison someone even more than they were already poisoned. This was not ideal.

But -- well, if they tried to figure it out, then Noble could volunteer to be the taker of the potion. Maybe Miss Chevalier would even be impressed -- no, he shouldn't think like that. Maybe the hospital would be impressed by his tenacity.

"I could test it, if not," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, as if he did this every day.

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Tabi shook her head. She hadn't used this particular antidote in the last week since the batch was brought it. She also hadn't heard of any mishaps in the hospital either. "I hardly think testing it would be wise. You haven't been poisoned after all." An antidote would be benign enough, but if they weren't prepared correctly, could turn into the poison. While he was in the right ward to be treated if something went wrong, Tabitha was not sure that it would look good for his contract with the hospital if she wound up treating him today.

"I think the protocol is to pull the unsatisfactory ones from the shelf, but perhaps you could take a few to do further testing on?" That was probably a decision for her superiors to make, so he would have to speak with them, but she thought it a prudent idea. "You'd have to ask my boss, however."

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absolute beauty by MJ

Noble was probably lucky that Miss Chevalier was reasonable, because if she'd suggested he take the maybe-poisonous antidotes, he definitely would have. "That sounds reasonable," Noble agreed, "So we pull all the off-color potions - looks like it's this section -" he gestured "- and then I'll ask your boss if I can take two or three to poke around with."

Hopefully it was a simple mistake, or the corks hadn't been sealed right - and hopefully he'd find a way to test the potions without taking them himself.

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The following 1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post:1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post
   Reuben Crouch

'That sounds like a perfectly good idea," Tabitha agreed with a small smile. "If you'd like to go speak with Mr. Fisk, I will take care of the potions." That way he could be shot of her now. She could take care of the incorrect potions and set a few aside for him just in case that was the route they were to take in the end.

"Your help is greatly appreciated, Mr. Greengrass." Tabitha smiled softly at him and she moved to gather some of the flawed flasks.

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absolute beauty by MJ