InsaneJournal

Sterility & clean, spartan lines dictated the small space of the examination room and Charlie, who eschewed the table in favour of a rolling stool, stared with blatant wariness. (Perhaps the environment was far more varied, perhaps it layered with functional purpose. But Charlie was blind to it.) He’d never felt comfort amongst the trappings of hospital life and even now, he wondered if he’d simply made a mistake. There had to be enough salve to heal his back and over time, the skin would work itself loose again. I will be well and I will help my family.

Instead, he waited for Healer Jones. And he imagined an old, stooped wizard with a beaked nose and owlish eyes blinking behind bottle-thick spectacles. Only a very old fellow could be so venerated and celebrated among those of his profession. He shifted on the stool, careful to keep his back straight and hands in his lap, as if being still would inevitably prolong the impending visit. Or, at least, keep him from crying out in considerable pain.

Healer Jones was, in fact, quite venerated among the hospital staff and several of its patients, though she would barely bat an eye to hear of it. She didn’t require the praise -- but the respect, well, the respect was nice. The ability to go about her business unquestionably even more valuable, the trust her patients placed in her both intimidating and heartwarming.

It had come through in the list of patients assigned to her that evening -- Weasley, Charles. Of course, she recognised the name: it was a small magical community, after all. If she could recall it, the second eldest Weasley boy had recently returned from abroad, and, she might have assumed he would be wanting a check-up, which was just good practice.

"Excuse me." There was a gaggle of female aides hovering outside the exam room, casting sly glances towards it and then whispering amongst themselves. They were sometimes nearly as bad as her sister. Still, upon Hestia's arrival, they parted like scolded children and scattered back to what they presumably ought to have been doing in the first place.

Biting back a small smile, Hestia entered the room and glanced down at her chart to review the pre-appointment notes. "Hullo, Mr Weasley. It says here you've been abroad."

Godric help me, I’m going to jump out the window. That’d been the thought before the scraping of the tumblers told Charlie he wasn’t to be alone much longer. When Healer Jones entered the room and shut the door -- when, at last, he looked up through the screen of his lashes -- he realized how unflaggingly wrong he’d been. The woman before him drew a furious blush and he could not help the stammer which made his normally rich baritone a brusque staccato.

“I’ve been in Romania, actually.” He swallowed. “So yes.”

"A dragon handler, wasn't it?" Hestia murmured before looking up to take in the full sight of her patient. The red hair earmarked him for a Weasley easily enough, a collection of bonny and boyish features that was undoubtedly the reason for the hospital's hovering fans, and ever so young to think he'd made a living of wrangling things so dangerous as dragons -- the there was the hardened edge, the wizened sheen to his eye that bespoke just that. She set the sheet down and gave him her full regard, noting the way he could not still, the slight tension that betrayed anxiety, his stiffened posture. She blinked, features smoothing out into an expression of open neutrality. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“It was an endeavour in dragon handling,” came out of the corner of his mouth, wise cracking to cover the jolt of adrenaline which sought to propel him from the room and into the hall. But Charlie had stared blithely into far more malevolent eyes than these. And as such, his shallow breath deepened. He concentrated on the green wall framed by the angles of her shoulder.

“There was an accident with a young buck Fireball. He about had me for dinner, and as such I spent a couple days in Romania. Then, I spent about a month with my uncle up in Yorkshire. Now I’m here with you, because I can’t lift my arms really. I don’t know that it’s healed badly, but there’s still work to be done. You come highly recommended, ma’am … and you come with the promise of quiet.”

At this, Hestia’s response was only meted out in the slightest of frowns. The tale told sounded vaguely horrifying, even cavalierly framed as it was. She’d seen her share of dragon-related injuries before, and none of them had been pretty. That Charlie sat before her now, appearing, at least at first, remarkably whole, was a thing of wonder. “Take off your shirt,” she commanded.

“ -- I brought the medical records,” he said, an after thought which may have been part in parcel with delaying her perusal of his injuries. An old man would have been easier. But he rose, still from the sentinel-like state he had taken up on the stool, taking his place upon the examination table.

It was the first time, levering himself up with a ginger hand (and a bitten lip which may have only ended in a hiss to save the curse on the lip of his tongue), in forever he could remember his feet not touching the floor. Thus unmoored, he made quick work of sloughing off the buttons before stiltedly levering from his sleeves.

The span of his shoulders and back were rutted with claws and puncture wounds, divots in his flesh which pocked and rippled as he shifted self-consciously. Along his spine there remained a swath of red flesh, a final kiss of fire from the dragon before it had been corralled.

At first, she didn’t move. Within her chest, her heart sped up, a stone seeming to lodge in her throat. Her trained eye betrayed little reaction to the extent of his injuries -- that they were the way they were even after a little over a month spoke to their severity. By all rights, Charlie oughtn’t be alive today.

At last, she stood and approached him from behind, the better to examine the parade of scars and new skin, patches here and there lightly peppered with freckles. “I’m going to touch you now,” she said over his shoulder.

And she did, lightly, initially hesitant, to the least damaged part of him first. The skin felted heated, on fire, as if still bearing the fiery wrath of that dragon. She traced a light finger down the rivulets of raised, uneven tissue, applied light pressure here and there to gauge his reaction. “It looks to be healing as expected. Whomever treated you before has done you quite well. How much does it still hurt?”

“All right? Good.”

He sent mental thanks to the hospital staff in Romania; sent great love to his Uncle Gideon; caught his breath when the Healer’s fingertips tested the wholeness of his flesh. Cool, persistent pressure (for as much as it was a relief upon the fire-ravaged flesh) caused a distinct furrowing of his brow -- “There.” Her hand stopped below the span of his right ribcage. “It’s the worst there.”

Her hand paused on his flank as she watched the play of muscles waver and tense in response. From her vantage point, she could just see the brief clench of his jaw, the consternation produced at such feelings. “There could still be deep tissue damage. It will take longer to heal but there are no signs of infection. Can you turn your head and look over your left shoulder without moving the rest of your upper body?”

The only movement, his chin. And even in that, he broke off in a stilted oath which bowed him up with both hands tight upon the edge of the table.

“Godric loving -- oh hell. I’m so sorry,” breathless, weakened. “So, we’re in need of a good deal of physio.” He wanted her to pick up the slack, to suggest he should keep the out of doors (dragons, still too far and too fear-laden) in his mind.

“ … Healer Jones?”

Her alarm only translated into both hands coming up to brace themselves against him, or perhaps to offer some semblance of comfort through the pain. “It’s alright,” she whispered in the tense bout of silence as he sought to collect himself once more. “Yes, Mr Weasley?”

“I’m sorry.” He wanted to slide off the table and melt into the wall. Coming home had garnered far more attention than he’d ever warranted, even at school, and the intervening lies told to salvage what modicum of his self-worth was left did well to damage the only sliver left of his calm.

“I’ll go.”

“You know, I’ve heard far worse from men far more coarse over significantly less,” she said instead, ignoring his last statement as she drew back to give him the needed space, moving instead over to her notes and taking up a quill to write in her notes. “You’ve suffered a setback. It happens. You’re very lucky to be alive, and you’re doing remarkably for it. Furthermore, there’s great promise for a near full recovery. You’re correct in that I would like to start you on a course of physical therapy. There are also some potions I would like to prescribe to be administered via deep tissue massage -- it will aid in the healing and provide you some topical relief. Have you someone still to help you move about at home?”

Levering his feet back upon the floor, he turned to her as she wrote her notes and shook his head. This resolute woman earned his respect or at least, he supposed, it was her hope that he’d ultimately heal which gave him leave to lever one side of his mouth up his cheek. “Healer’s orders?”

Then -- “I’ve got a new place to stay and I’m alone. No one in my family knows what happened, except my brother and my uncle.”

She paused in her writing to spare him a glance: an arched brow to punctuate her silent answer before she resumed her notes and dotted the last page. His next comment, though, proved not so easily dealt with. Charlie had insinuated as much earlier, and all of his reactions so far -- the quiet flayed pride, the wounded confidence -- spoke to his actions in wanting to hide his accident from the rest of his family. “I take it you would not want to trouble them with this, even though they would undoubtedly be willing to help you if you asked?”

Charlie’s family had enough to occupy them; as Hestia Jones stated, he’d lived. And it would have to be enough that he did. A hand lit upon his discarded shirt in tentative question, echoing her arched brow as he found the ground beneath his feet. “Your assumptions are correct.”

She would almost have huffed out a note of exasperation, but stopped herself at the last moment. “Alright. Then we’ll get that sorted. I shall stop by, twice weekly, for your requisite appointments. They won’t be pleasant, but they will help.” She stood up too, meeting him at level gaze, only a brief glance to his chest, telling herself it was to assure there were no further injuries there either, and then back to his face with her blandest expression. “You can...put your shirt back on, Mr Weasley.”

“You?” His brow arched in question, but obediently he slid back into his shirt and popped the buttons back into place. Didn’t Healers have nurses for things like that? And Charlie, whose most intimate situation with another human was huddling for warmth round a dragon belly, swallowed down a nervous laugh.

“Well, fine. I’ll leave my address with the charge nurse.”

Then -- “Good day, Healer Jones. And thanks.”

After a moment wherein she averted her eyes, then looked up, Hestia could only nod in return. “Of course. Be well, Mr Weasley. I shall see you later this week.” A pause. “You should probably make sure to speak in low volume to the nurse. I fear that should anyone else overhear, you may have quite a few more visitors than you would anticipate.”

A moue of confusion passed across his countenance, as it took several moments for her words to ring true. When at last they did, with his wool coat tucked beneath his chin, he gave her a snort. Those sorts of adoring ladies belonged to the likes of Bill. They’d simply been mistaken … “Advice I shall heed, then. And next time you see me, it’ll be Charlie.”

He paused with his hand upon the door. “If we are to get to know one another, I won’t have it any other way.” Then, a smile. He managed -- or endeavoured in the attempt -- to fill it with the pure gratitude felt toward this woman, whose gifts might one day let him swing a rope or an axe. Or, he told himself, at least allow him to lift a box for his siblings as they found their way into new spaces and places.

In some strange sixth sense he understood this moment to be one of those upon which life hinged. And in it, his paused lasted a moment longer in which his gaze skated along the fine hollow of her throat to the alabaster sheen which made her dark hair and pale eyes stand out in contrast.

“Good day,” he murmured and slid through the door.