This thread follows the events of this thread.

"Healer Torret, the mediwitch team has arrived." A healer disappeared from the office doorway as Joy lifted her head from her hands. A peaceful morning had been interrupted with an owl detailing a sudden sneezing muggle outbreak. By how they were described in the letter, the effects seemed almost comical, though the true seriousness of the matter was obvious. Joy had sent every mediwitch on the floor, as well as some others, to gather the muggles.

The healer rose from her desk and walked down the hall, being informed by a flock of returning mediwitches the conditions and the room the muggles were in. Joy could have told someone what room the muggles were in from the noise. It was loud on her floor, sneezing and clattering.

The room itself seemed to be in some sort of disaster. Nearly every bed in the ward had a muggle patient to fill it. As soon as Joy walked in a few healers rushed to her. "Healer Torret-" they all began at once, glancing at each other, until one stepped forward. "The muggles keep sneezing and flying all over the place, we can't seem to keep them down."

Joy turned to the bed, looking sympathetic. "Chain them to the beds. It's for their own good. If they struggle try to calm them." The healers nodded, going back to their work. Taking a deep breath, Joy stepped forward herself to help.

The information had come - a little late - to Arcturus regarding the sneezing outbreak that had just hit muggles. He'd been expecting a few people. Not this many. It was so noisy that he could hear it through his door, and Arcturus couldn't work with the racket outside. He sighed and put his quill down; maybe it was time for a break from his paperwork.

He stepped out into the corridor in time to see Joy disappear into the ward, followed by a gaggle of mediwitches at her heels. Out here the sneezing was incredibly loud and almost comical, but Arcturus knew better than to laugh. He shut his office door and went to see if he could help.

Almost immediately he could see the problem. He watched the scene for a minute or so before quietly muttering "Wow" to himself under his breath. Then he pulled out his wand from his sleeve. The third floor wasn't known for having many healers, and it needed all the help it could get even if it meant these patients would be seeing people waving sticks around and looking utterly ridiculous.

Compared to its upper counterpart, the third floor was teeming with activity today- so much so that staff from around the hospital were being nudged towards the potions and plant poisoning division for this sudden outbreak of sneezing muggles. Vivienne had been on her break when Flynn asked if she would head out with the next mediwitch team.

"Chained to their beds?" she exclaimed as a mediwizard relayed Torret's orders once they'd hit the floor to join the team "Jésus, I hope that's for the short term." Healers were racing through the corridors, flutters of lime green robes, and sneezes could be heard from any point in the hospital.

Patients on the first floor were complaining about the noise.

Restraining adult muggles was facile but Viv worried for the youths. She parted ways as the corridor split in two, and turned left towards the closest ward- nearly running right into Hollingbury.

"Arcturus!" Her colleague was already armed for the hazards ahead. "Ce qui se passe? Has anything changed?" she jumped right into the queries, avoiding their usual niceties. "I was just on my way to lead the next Mediwitch team, there are still more patients."

Arcturus turned around in surprise at Vivienne's voice, and then a few seconds later figured in hindsight there wasn't much of a reason to be surprised. The third floor was understaffed; it would make sense that near every healer from the other floors were asked to come up here and deal with the problem.

"I just arrived here," he replied, waving his wand vaguely at the scene before them. "Apart from having to conjure chains, I don't think anything's changed. Much."

At her mention of 'more patients', he stared at her for a bit too long before saying, "...more? You're pulling my leg, right? How many more are coming in?"

Her colleague's surprise did not bode well. Vivienne hoped, Jésus, that others on the third floor would be prepped for the next influx though she would not take the risk.

"Désolé," the witch flushed at Arcturus' shock. "I do not know. Ten, maybe twenty, when we return from the site. It's terrible but I know only as much as you now..." Except that she was starting to suspect that their estimations were underestimated.

Viv swallowed nervously, shifting her grey gaze from Hollingbury to the group of mediwitches making their way down the corridor behind him. She knew it could not be all slow days at the hospital but this was ridicule.

"I had better leave now, ami." Patting the other Healer on the arm reassuringly, she turned to follow the mediwitches towards the stairs. She looked over her should just as she left: "You will inform Healer Torret, oui? Bonne chance!"

Arcturus watched her go with his jaw hanging. He managed to remember himself about thirty seconds later, and then went to deal with a patient while trying to think of something to tell Joy without betraying his exact feelings about the topic.

As he bound another astonished and rather terrified Muggle victim to what he was beginning to think of as Extreme Sneezing, he carefully mused that regardless of the number admitted to the hospital, Joy would have had things sorted out. And if she hadn't, this sort of thing was surely being handled by the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, right? He didn't have a very high opinion of the MoM in general, but he'd had a sort of grudging respect for Obliviators and whoever it was involved in making Muggles not notice the magical world.

He looked down at his bewildered patient and smiled reassuringly, masking his apprehension neatly. Then he went to look for Joy, which didn't take long.

"Joy," he said, "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting you, but apparently we have more Muggles coming in. Vivienne's just told me she's going out with another team to pick up the next group. We do have sufficient wards for this case, yes?" Bringing Muggles into St Mungo's was another worrying thing, but that would come later on.

Edwin arrived at St Mungo's and headed straight for the third floor. There was a bloody Daily Prophet reporter already in the reception area, lurking near the welcome witch. He waved a dismissive hand at them, but his presence had been noted. This incident was now upgraded in the minds of the media if Edwin had come personally to oversee things. Not to do with the fact it was Saturday. With luck it wasn't a very prominent reporter - what with the task going on at Hogwarts - but then if it was a junior, they might persist to cut their teeth with a scoop. Drat, all the same.

The Third Floor was busy, and Edwin wove his way as neatly as he could between trolleys and stretchers with Muggles upon them. He recognised Vivienne Thorpe from one of his last visits to mend his head, and gave her a familiar nod,
"Who knew puffapods could have such a difference on Muggles, eh?" He asked her, spotting other healers nearby he recognised by name or passing. The black and white hair of Hollingbury's son, and then Joy Torret, who headed up the floor.

"Cleaning up on the street," Edwin explained to the nearby healers. "The obliviators will be over as soon as MLE get their paws on the scene to find out why puffapods were there. Are they all still sneezing?"

"No, no!" Joy snapped at a newer healer, who was attempting to chain a muggle woman around the waist. "We're not trying to suffocate the muggles!" With a swish of her wand, Joy non-verbally removed the chains. "Around one wrist and one ankle, attached to the bed posts." Another swish and the chains were replaced, and already she had moved on to the next few healers. "These are people we are treating, not animals. Not too tight." Everyone seemed to be doing something wrong.

It was only then that Joy seemed to acknowledge that Arcturus was next to her. "Arcturus, Merlin, I-" She began, before what he was saying processed in her brain. "More muggles... of course... if one plant can be an amazing allergen it's a puffapod." She looked around the room, nearly every bed filled, any that were empty were quickly being taken. "The second ward is about half as big as the main ward, you know the third floor is not build to hold epidemics."

In two steps she was beside a group of healers, quickly healing wounds or concussions of secured muggles with wandwork. Two of them, some of the floor's best charmers, she dismissed to magically enlarge the second ward by an Undetectable Extension Charm. It wasn't a permanate fix for overcrowding, but they'd be able to handle the next group.

As soon as Edwin arrived, Joy disregarded the mayhem and rushed over, bringing Arcturus. "Yes, they are still sneezing! Puffapod pollen is good at traveling and very sticky. I'm trying to keep them conscious for the treatment, but it's becoming increasingly difficult." Several marks on the ceiling and walls, as well as one shattered lantern, were enough proof.

Joy took a sudden breath, and it seemed as if she needed it. Anyone who had worked at St. Mungo's for years would have rarely seen this kind of Joy. Could she work under pressure? Of course. Did she enjoy treating epidemics? No, that was the job of the floor below her. "I swear, once the MLE finds the source, whoever was idiotic enough to plant puffapod seeds better get a substantial charge."

"Healer Torret!" Joy turned to a healer-in-training, who was levitating a group of bottles beside him. "The second floor gave me all the Anti-Snuffling Potion[1] they had, but this is it."

"Five?!" What had she honestly expected? The coming winter would cause a stock up of Pepper-Up Potion, not Anti-Snuffling Potion. "...So be it. We'll work with what we have for now." The bottles were placed on the floor and the healer-in-training hurried off.

Joy turned back to Edwin "I've been trying to get to the point where it's safe to administer a pollen Allergy Potion. But with all the violent sneezing I don't feel comfortable trying to administer any oral medication. And with even more muggles coming in and all the floor's staff already at work..." This was one moment in which Joy fully desired that wizard medicines were like muggle medicines, able to be taken intravenously. "One moment please. You might want to cover your ears."

Putting her wand to her throat, her voice came out as if through a speaker. A healer, and the healer-in-charge she was training, were sent to mix a new batch of Anti-Snuffling Potion. Five healers were give one of the bottles each and asked to start administering it and an Allergy Potion. She was going to need healers and healers-in-training in the second ward once the mediwitches arrived. To those suffering from allergies, she was sincerely sorry, and after they were treated for their allergies them and their clothes would be cleaned of pollen.

As soon as the wand was taken away, Joy sighed. "It'll be impossible to get rid of all the pollen, and with the reaction we can't risk it. They won't be going home with their clothes at all." Anyway, a hospital wasn't a dry clean service. "Not like they'll remember it."

1.	For reference before I make a lexicon page, the fumes of Anti-Snuffling Potion cause whoever smells it to not sneeze for at least five minutes.

"Different clothes?" Edwin replied, his expression clear this was inconvenient. "That'll be one extra hurdle for the obliviators, certainly, I can get someone on to clothing straight away, see if we can't solve that one for you, Healer Torret." Edwin made a note on a piece of parchment, and then straightened his tie.

"How long is the estimated quarantine for these patients? I can mobilise them getting back into the community with a few hours notice usually, but on this scale, it would be advantageous to have even a rough estimate to work with. We have to identify and return them - with luck the majority are residents of the affected street."

The Department Head anticipated that Torret would dislike being pushed for an estimate - healing couldn't be rushed, and this was certainly not a standard situation by any stretch of recent history.

"We're working on the shortest turnaround we can manage." He assured her.