anthony_hp (anthony_hp) wrote in unforeseen_rpg, @ 2007-09-12 19:34:00 |
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Who: Anthony Goldstein, Madame Pomfrey, All
When: May 22nd, 1998, middle of the night
Where: Hospital Wing
What: Anthony's life sucks. Hard.
Notes: R for gore, graphic murder, medical stuff. Thanks to Chris for the NPC RP!
Status: Open
Anthony rushed along the corridors, and burst into the hospital wing, placing Theo down carefully on the floor, and surveying the scene. It was not a pleasant one. Madame Pomfrey had her hands full dealing with a handful of patients, some seriously injured. He turned and dashed over to the cabinet, his hands shaking slightly as he pushed through the piles of supplies, looking for the triage tape.
The smell was... unique, and not pleasant. There was a distinct metallic ting to the air, the smell of gore covering everyone. He'd smelt blood before – but it was overpowering here. It wasn't just one person bleeding, it was many, many, many people, in a small environment. He pulled the rolls of tape off of the shelf and looked around. Where the hell was he supposed to begin? Training only gave him so much to go on – as his warm, azure eyes flashed around the room, he began to see double. The people in front of him, demanding his attention, and the smoke filled corridors, wands blasting, green lights flashing as he sent out curse after curse after curse.
He shook his head. “Not the time to lose your head, Anthony.” he gently reminded himself, and began with the patients nearing him, tagging them with yellow and green tape mostly. So far, nothing that couldn't be delayed for the more urgent cases. He knew that there were going to be more urgent cases – so putting people off is always the wisest choice.
It took him a good half an hour to get through tagging the people who had come through the door by the time he had arrived – from their recounts, the battle was still raging in parts of the castle. He had blood all over the front of his shirt, and had so far paused his tagging twice to work on a patient who would have earned a red tape. The yellow tape would flash every hour until a Healer tapped it off – to remind them to update the status of the paperwork. The red tape flashed insistently all the time, rather annoyingly in Anthony's opinion.
A boy grabbed his arm. "Hey, can you help me?" the boy asked, raising his arm as much as he could. The wrist was swollen and obviously broken, causing him to wince when he moved it.
Anthony turned to him, eying his arm, and noticing the green tape. "I triaged you. I'm sorry, but we've got more critical injuries we have to deal with... we can't afford the pain potions right now."
"But what am I supposed to?" he asked, frowning. "It hurts."
Anthony had turned his attention back to the other patients, placing his fingers on someone's neck, waiting for a few seconds, then gently dragging his hand down their face, closing their eyelids and tying a black band around their arm. "Sit down and wait - hopefully I'll have a chance to brew more pain potions later. I can't spare the time for a charm."
The boy sighed, holding his arm close. "It couldn't possibly take that long to just say a few words and fix it," he mumbled, just loud enough for Anthony to hear.
Anthony pinched his brow. "Five minutes, and magic I don't have to spare." he said, his voice a little sharp. He wasn't normally confrontational, but the endless stream of patients and his rapidly depleting magic was not putting him in a good mood. The flashbacks didn't help either, nor did the fact that it was some ungodly hour and he was working off of a handful of hours of sleep.
Anthony bit back the insult. "It would take me far longer to begin to teach you than to perform it." he said, tying a white ribbon around someone who was dripping blood onto the floor. "Wrap a bandage around the wound - you'll be fine." He moved to the next patient.
The boy followed Anthony to the next patient, trying to ignore the groans and all the blood. All he wanted was a simple spell! "Where am I supposed to find a bandage to wrap it with? And how can I do it with one working hand?"
Anthony gritted his teeth. "I. Don't. Care." he said, tightly, trying to control his rapidly building anger. "Go put yourself into a coma - that'll stop the pain." The boy scowled. "I can't do that, and you know it."
Anthony resisted telling him to simply beat himself on the head with a brick until he fell unconscious. By the intelligence of this boy, he might just follow through with that, and he really did /not/ want to have to explain that one.
"Well?" he asked, sounding clearly impatient. "It's only one spell, honestly."
Anthony rounded on him. "Do you know how many people I've pronounced dead in the last half hour?" His voice was icy sharp. "I'm an apprentice, for God's sake. I'm not even supposed to be pronouncing unsupervised, but I have no choice! It's a doctor and a half to treat hundreds of wounded - and you are the least of my concern." he spat out. "Get out of my sight. "
The boy's eyes filled with tears as he took a step back, his mouth forming into a small pout. "Fine! I only wanted you to help me!" He turned and ran out of the hospital wing before Anthony could say anything else.
Anthony waved his hand in dismissal. A part of his mind was mortified, but, he was far too busy to have time for emotion. This wasn't medicine - this was robotic. Check, tie, check, tie, check, tie. Pronounce. Check, tie, check, tie, check, tie....
Minutes seemed to drag on like hours as he worked down the line of patients, stopping only to mutter a few words to each, tie a band around their arm, and move on. Triage was more important than medicine – it was the only way to save the most lives.
He stopped at one patient, screaming on the ground, some bits of internal organs visible through their shredded stomach. Anthony stopped, and bit his lip. The patient might survive if he and Madame Pomfrey worked on her together, but it would take a good chunk of time, potions and blood that they didn't have to spare. He ran his hand through his hair, unhappily. He held the life of a patient literally in his hands. His fingernails dug deep marks in his hand as he stared at his fellow student.
If he left the girl, she would die in agony, but if he worked to save her life, others who might have had a better chance of surviving could die. 'The clock is ticking, Anthony. You've got to make your decision.' he reminded himself. He could give the girl some pain potions – but those were in rare supply.
He leaned over to her and gently lifted one of his last pain potions to her lips, closing her nose with his fingers to force her to swallow it. It wouldn't be much against the pain, but there was nothing else he could do. She would die quickly, and in agony.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, choking back the sobs, he walked over to the next patient. Check, tie, check, tie, check. Back to the rhythm. This time, however, it wasn't for long; another crack tore through the air, but this one was much less horrible, and more sudden. Anthony jumped slightly, and looked around. A grubby elf stood in the middle of the screaming mob, and dropped the prone figure of Ron Weasley onto the floor, rather unceremoniously, then vanished as quickly as he had come – his duty done, rather unhappily.
Anthony paled, and he ran over to the side of the prone figure, lifting him up and rushing him over to a cot. He shooed the yellow taped Hufflepuff lying on the cot off, and gently laid Ron down onto it. 'What a fucking night.' he thought to himself, sardonically. 'Inferi attack. You hallucinate. You pass over a patient for medical care who will clearly die because of it. And now the boy you've been attracted to for years gets dropped off by a disgruntled house elf, injured. Just fucking perfect.'
He ran his wand over the prone figure, and cast a few diagnostic spells. Smoke inhalation, cerebral hypoxia and ischemia, and some physical injuries. From the marks on his neck, the hypoxia was probably caused by pressure on the carotid artery. He gently tipped a pain potion into the boys mouth, then waved his wand over the cot, creating a mostly transparent bubble which pressurized – a mock hyperbaric chamber.
He bit his lip, concerned. But there was nothing more he could do. He marked the count-down of ten minutes until he next had to check on Ron, and went back to work, checking on Ron out of the corner of his eye every few moments. Check, tie, check, tie, check, tie....