Nearly noon, St.Mungo's


Led by a timid Mediwitch from reception, Ira Almasy was a severe and forbidding figure stalking  hospital corridors on her way to the children's ward. She had come alone. Niece and assistants remained at their own tasks - not uncaring but decisively unwanted for their company in this particular ambition. Their reactions were not necessary. For today, only the eyes of strangers and the hearts of sympathetic observers.

"And these are the children, naturally, poor things..." the witch rambled nervously on as they passed through open doors into a long and wide room with beds lining either side. "Comatose of course so they're not really aware, but the families you know."

Ira didn't justify this flagrant show of sympathy with a verbal response, smiling tightly at the shorter woman before she looked out across the sleeping figures: heads of flaxen, shadow, autumnal reds. Eyes closed peacefully to the turmoil that surrounded their disintegrating lives. As she moved to walk the aisle between beds her rich and redolent  perfume mingled with the herby, sterile scents of the hospital. It was a soothing bouquet - brimming with the promise of healing, of arcadian death.

Healers stood or idled with clipboards, no doubt too immersed in their occupational troubles to significantly take note of a visitor. Trailing further behind and only now entering, a pair of witches from the Daily Prophet. A photographer and and reporter, both observing expectantly in her direction. She was here on a pleasant and unfussy pretence: a great donation made to St.Mungo's on account of its most recent tragedy, a kindly expedition jotted down in one's public social diary, a show of her generous aristocratic identity.

The potion she had taken - to cure a headache - disagreed absurdly with the plan. It was taking more than her fair share of focus to ignore the palpable delirium stirring inside. Most tempting was the laughter, an impatient effervescence demanding release. Ira steadied her hands as she moved down to the next bed and curled her fingers around the cool railing.

Behind her, the Mediwitch hovered and watched, likely waiting for an appropriate moment to cut in with more inane drivel about the loss of innocent lives. "Madam Almasy?" The shrill and chirpy voice caused her to grimace.

Exasperating waste of space.

Ira closed her eyes and clasped her head, feigning the surge of an unexpected headache. In truth the tears came too easily. She felt wetness against her cheeks, touched it gingerly in nearly genuine disbelief, frowned her pale brow at the sight of blood. It was beautiful: bright red, the living and dying shade of viscera. Her mind rocked nauseatingly and she grabbed the railing tighter, leaning forward to avoid disorientation. She must not lose all control.

Blood dripped on to crisp white sheets at the foot of the comatose child who slept there. It was too delicious, Ira smothered the hysterical thought even as it kept on, this intoxicating spectacle. This fairytale perfection: dead children, lost elderly, people damned at the hands of those neither innocent nor wise.

And those thoughts dissolved into ether. Ira caught the flash of the camera bulb, blinking as more tears trickled down her face. She laughed. A solitary, light giggle. Jumping in shock, the witch clasped a hand to her mouth. The high-pitched laughter was hardly stifled - through it, Ira swore in Russian and lifted her tearful gaze to the closest Healer.

Normally Arcturus would have been in his office organising his paperwork and files to be worked on later, but as of now the patients needed his attention more than the files lying on his desk. He could do that later in a jiffy with the wave of a wand if he so desired, provided he didn't accidentally dump them in the sink in fatigue.

As he checked the temperature of a sleeping child, intent on making sure the little one was on her way to recovery, the doors opened and someone accompanied by a mediwitch strode in. Visitor, no doubt - important? Daily Prophet reporters were trailing behind her. Arcturus turned his attention back to his patient, dismissing the event. Through the allegations and accusations thrown at St Mungo's due to the poisoning had come sympathy from others who believed the hospital was not at fault, or that even if the hospital were at fault its patients were not to be forgotten. He appreciated the gestures, but frankly he was also still being paid to take care of people, not worship these generous donors.

The girl's pulse was slow, but steady. Arcturus smiled a little to himself as he straightened up and added notes to the log he was carrying. Good, she would get better. News for her family that he wouldn't dread having to convey. Things were looking up. Hopefully no more lives would be lost.

"Madam Almasy?" Oh Merlin, it was that mediwitch. Arcturus had sometimes wondered if she was under the effects of helium sometimes. It wasn't that she was capable of talking at a normal pitch, but she somehow felt it made her more...feminine. In reality all it did was make her sound sharper than glass. He looked up at them, hearing the crackle-burst of the camera bulb...the high-pitched giggle that was not from his colleague.

He could see blood on the sheets of the next bed - fresh, judging by the stark red. From where? Blood tears. She was looking at right at him. And laughter - hysteria? More symptoms--

Arcturus swiftly rounded the end of the bed he was at, dropping the log back into its holder at its end. "Move away from her," he commanded of the Daily Prophet staff. "Give her space! Crocker," this was to the mediwitch, "get down to the apothecary immediately for the countermeasures for streeler-laced willow bark. Now, don't linger."

As the Prophet staff backed away warily, the healer turned to the lady. "Madam, how are you feeling?" he said, enunciating his words clearly and with no hint of panic, although there was some underlying tone of urgency. "Do you need to lie down? Can you walk?"

Ira's eyes, though her vision was blurred by clouds of blood, flickered to the Healer coming to help. White and black hair. Why was that familiar? Ah, yes, she could hear it now in the atrium of her mind. Balfour Spectre's amused voice, echoing in an account of happenstance meeting. The corners of his eyes creased. Cheekbones slanted beautifully, the way they did when he chewed on the inside of his cheek. And something not quite sane in his half-smile. He didn't know. He couldn't see it.

It was so vividly recalled that she understood the delirium had grabbed a hold.

The witch clutched at Hollingbury's shoulder - an easy feat, considering their height difference - as if though she were afraid her legs might give way. They were still steady beneath her, reliable as ever they have been. "Do you need to lie down? Can you walk?" Arcturus reacted better than clockwork the Prophet staff heeded only the slightest warning as another flashbulb went off.

"I need to sit." Ira breathed and then repeated herself, hissing, when she realised she had spoken in French. "It was... for a headache..." she allowed herself to be helped towards the closest chair at one of the empty bedsides. A mild potion taken, one that anybody might assume was safe based on its generic purposes.

There was an antidote sitting on a study shelf in Atreus if she needed it but Ira was counting on the diligence of Healers today. A passing thought; another donation after this assistance, further show of generosity. Natural gratitude.

"Is this nor--" she caught herself, wiping the tears away but simply smearing more red across her pale cheeks as she laughed. "Is this... is this normal?" Her thin lips spread into a maniacal grin. "What scared you white?" Ira dropped the laugh abruptly to look up at the Healer's shock of white hair.

Dominos. Strike one, they topple. Down and down they go. "What frightened you so badly?" she shook her head, tsk tsk tsk. And then, spat venomously, "A half-hearted job they have done, the cretins."

The French threw him off a little - he only recognised half of what she said, and it wasn't the part with the information he needed - but she thankfully followed it up with English. He shot the Daily Prophet staff a cold, icy look; as much as he wanted to shatter the camera bulb with his wand, he wasn't allowed to interfere. Freedom of press was supposed to be free. It wasn't meant to be nice.

Arcturus considered her lucky. She was, after all, at the stage where there was an antidote available, though for how long Mediwitch Crocker was going to take to get it to him he didn't know. Still, quite possibly all she would need is a night in the hospital, and then she'd be free to go. He let her settle into the seat, gauging the level of her hysteria and careful to maintain a polite, listening expression as she rambled. "I'm really sorry about this, it won't be long before you'll be all right," he assured her calmly.

Hallucinations were probably setting in by now. "Normal? Hardly. We had a batch of medication recently contaminated, I'm sorry we didn't manage to catch this one in time or follow it up," he assured her, his voice gentle as another mediwitch handed him a small tower with great presence of mind. "I'm just going to siphon away the blood on your face, all right? You're going to be okay. I promise that." Crocker!

Thankfully barely after his head managed to shout that the mediwitch herself showed up, handing him the antidote without comment. Arcturus gave her a look of gratitude before turning back to the witch. "Do you remember how much of the medication you took, madam?" he said, still speaking loudly and clearly. "I need to know, it's very important." He only hoped the hallucinations and hysteria hadn't fully robbed her of her capability to communicate what he needed from her to administer the right dosage.