InsaneJournal

Who: Charlie Weasley and Florinda McGonagall
What: Checking up on an out-of-hospital patient
When: BACKDATED to the first week of July
Where: The dragon preserve in Wales, dragonkeepers' quarters
Warnings: Shirtless Charlie!



"All right, your vitals look good based on the preliminary diagnostics, Mr Weasley," Florrie said, scribbling couple of notes on the parchments she'd brought with her. "This is the part where I ask you to show me where it hurts. Without your shirt, even."

She'd been sent to check up on Charlie after the accident that had broken his ribs a few weeks before. Supposedly he was mostly recovered, but she knew dragonkeepers: just like quidditchers, they consistently overestimated their recovery capacity and underestimated their injuries. For all that healing magics made broken ribs easy to recover from, they still had to be checked out. It was easier to send Florrie or one of her colleagues to Wales than it was to try to convince Charlie Weasley to come to Mungo's for another checkup.

Charlie stood from the edge of the bed where he’d perched during the first part of the exam. They were in the dragonkeepers’ quarters, a wide stone room made cozy by the low ceiling and by the various bits of clutter that had accumulated over the years. There were two other beds in the room besides the one Charlie was sitting, used by dragonkeeper needing a place to kip (useful during hatching time and the all-hours commitment of baby dragons. Parchment was stuck to the stone walls, mostly of dragon sketches, mixed with the occasional cheerful photo of the dragonkeepers, and various pages ripped from decades’ worth of Quidditch magazines. There was a tea kit in the corner on a much battered set of table and chairs. Everything smelled of dragons.

Charlie nudged the various bits of protective gear with his toe to keep from tripping on anything. Dragonkeepers weren’t known to be tidy and Charlie had dumped his things on floor when he removed them before the Healer arrived. He shucked out of his shirt and almost managed not to wince.His skin was freckled and marred with an occasional scar or shiny mark from old burns.

“Charlie’s fine,” he told her. “I never did fancy myself much of a mister.”

"Charlie it is, but you let me be the judge of fine, Charlie." Florrie grinned good-naturedly at him. She had done her share of working in quidditch locker rooms and on the sidelines at matches in emergency situations over the years, so the mess didn't bother her. Nor, apparently, did the stench, beyond an initial wrinkle of the nose.

What she did notice was the way Charlie winced when he doffed his shirt. "Okay, what was it that so painful that made you make that face? Show me where it hurts."

“It wasn’t that painful,” protested Charlie. “I could barely get dressed before.” After the injury, Charlie spent two days laying around the flat shirtless because it was too hard to get his clothes on. “I’m fine,” he grumbled, even as he rubbed a hand along his right side, where the worst of the bruising had been,

Florrie lifted Charlie's arm up so she could get to his injured side and looked at the mostly-healed bruises. Then she checked them out with her hands. She had, Charlie discovered, cold fingers. "I don't smell enough paste on you," she told him, "and not just because it's all dragons and sweaty socks in here. Keep it up with the paste or you'll keep hurting."

With that warning delivered, Florrie drew her wand again for another diagnostic charm on his ribs to determine their state. "Hold still," she told him, and began to cast.

“I hate the paste.” Charlie sounded more like a petulant child than a grown adult concerned for his health - but he did hate the paste. It smelled funny, it was cold putting it on, and he disliked the texture on his hands.

"You'd hate being benched for injury even more, I bet." Florrie wagged a finger at Charlie by way of emphasising that point. "The ribs are healing nicely but you still need to be careful with them. They could still crack again if you take another hard hit--and if that happens, you'll have to go to Mungo's and stay over while they regrow them." This sounded less like a scolding and more like a prediction of what Florrie expected to happen to Charlie if he didn't take good care of himself.

“I won’t get hit like that again.” Charlie paused and then amended, “Probably.”

Florrie looked up from prodding and poking to catch Charlie's eye. "That's what all the quidditch players say, too."

Charlie gave a breath of a laugh. “That’s not much of a discouragement. You think I’m healed up enough to start flying again?”

Florrie made a face at Charlie. "Practice flights yes. Actual hard flying, give it another week. If your practice flights go fine, you'll be ready by then to go back to work. And by 'go fine' I mean 'nothing that was injured hurts' including when you make sharp turns or steep rises or dives." She poked a finger at Charlie. "Not kidding, Charlie. I don't want to have to come back out here for you any time soon."

“Fine,” he agreed, trying not to sound like a disappointed child. “Practice only, healer’s orders. Is that how long it will be until it’s done healing? Another week?” He looked hopefully at her. Dragonkeeping was a risky business. Charlie accepted injury - being sidelined was harder to swallow.

"It'll be far enough along by then that rebreakage of the same fracture shouldn't be an issue. That's the concern: when you break the same ribs again in the same spot, before they've completely settled in after the magic. At a certain point it's easier to just haul you in and skele-gro the whole lot instead of trying to repair it." Florrie straightened up and summoned Charlie's shirt with an accio. "You can put this back on now."

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, pulling on his shirt. “Want me to tell Bill hello from you?”

Florrie grinned at Charlie. "You do that. And Tell him I'm trying to keep you from breaking your ribs and it may be harder than keeping him from getting in trouble with deceased bank clients." She resisted the impulse to stick out her tongue at him as unprofessional. But it was there nonetheless.

“Everyone complains about me. No one ever yells at Bill and the dangerous world of finance.” Charlie smiled back.

"That's because they haven't met his clients," Florrie quipped. "Not quite so violent as your lizards, but some of their henchmen are."

“Don’t let the lizards hear that kind of talk. It’ll hurt their feelings.”