Alvis knew the Hospital Hut well. Most students did, whether it be from illnesses or allergies or accidental potion ingestion. For him, it was usually headaches. Every six weeks or so would find him curled in a chair in the waiting room, holding his head in desperate anticipation of an extra-strength potion to kill the pain.

But it was different, now. For the first time in a week, he actually didn't have a headache, although he was out of aspirin and willow-fine. Rather, he'd been sent down here by Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain Peyton Wentworth, who thought that there was something wrong with Alvis's eyes. Alvis thought that Wentworth was just trying to make him feel better about his dismal performance in the last practice, but he'd come down anyway just to make sure, because he'd also been getting marked down on his star charts, which just wouldn't do.

So now he sat quietly, going over Transfiguration facts in his head as he waited for his appointment to come up. When Healer Nagde appeared, he smiled at her. "Good morning, Madame Nagde. Thanks for working me in."

Tulojow finished wiping her hands on a small hand towel and waved the young Ravenclaw into the room.  Her gaze followed the lad closely, as was habit, taking a careful stock of his overall appearance and demeanor.  It had been a routine request for an appointment so Tulojow wasn't expecting to find anything alarming but such cursory observations had revealed vital, unexpected information before. 

Nothing alarming stood out.  What did stand out was the obvious absence of hunched shoulders or wrinkles at the corner of the boy's eyes.  All the usual telltale signs of pain seemed to be distinctly absent from his features. 

The older woman lowered herself into a chair and folded her hands in her lap.  "A visit when you aren't trying to poke your fingers through your temples?" Tulojow asked, a grin spreading across her face.  "That's a bit of an oddity.  Have you noticed something else associated with the headaches?"

"Oh no, nothing like that." Alvis rubbed his temple preemptively. With his luck, talking about headaches would conjure one out of the blue. "Though...I guess they have been coming a bit more often lately."

He trailed off a moment, tallying the incidents in his head. In previous years, he'd averaged about one minor headache a week, with a major disruption driving him into the hospital wing three or four times  semester. In the past month, he could count a dozen minor twinges and two potion-level pains, one he'd managed to kill with a self-brewed potion and the one he'd slept off after the Welcoming Feast.

He summarized this for Madame Nagde, then sighed, coming to a conclusion of his own. "And now I'm out of aspirin. So I'll have to start chewing willow bark again, won't I?" Alvis disliked willow bark. As a headache cure, it had roughly the same effectiveness as Mum's aspirin, but it combined all the effort of chewing gum with all the taste of a parchment scroll.

"Anyway...actually, the headaches aren't why I'm here today. At least, I don't think they are?" Alvis reigned in his wandering mind, focusing on the matter at hand. "It's my eyes. That is...I don't really know how to explain it. My angles are off. And I've been having trouble focusing. Like..." He held his left hand out at arm's length and peered at his fingers. Was it his imagination, or were they blurred there at the very tips? "It's all fuzzy. This hasn't happened before, but I don't know -- maybe it's just because the headaches are worse?"

With a creak, the door between the cabin's main room and the kitchen swung open as a short (even by house elf standards), thin-eared house elf came bustling in with a tray bearing several pots of steaming hot water and a variety of baskets of dried herbs.  Tulojow had enlisted Pipsqueak - or, as Tulojow affectionately called the elf - Pippy's help shortly after being appointed the Hogwarts Healer and the pint-sized elf knew most of the regular students almost as well as Tulojow did. 

Having seen Alvis' name on the schedule, the elf had, presumably, started preparing the usual variety of medicinal teas shortly before his arrival.  But, as the young man bore no active headache, those particular brews seemed unnecessary.

"Sounds like we'll just be needing the usual, my dear," Tulojow told the elf who, with a nod, turned and scurried promptly back to the kitchens. 

"Have you been keeping up with the journal?" Tulojow asked.  The recommendation of a 'headache journal' had been made the first time Alvis approached the healer about the headaches.  He'd been tasked with not only marking the date and time of each headache but also when he first noticed they'd lifted, the weather of the day, season, and any other noteworthy details. 

The Healer offered the lad a sympathetic grin when the young man lamented his depleted supply of aspirin and nodded.  "At least for the time being," she confirmed.  There were herbal remedies that were as effective as the muggle varieties but muggles definitely still had the advantage when it came to convenience.  "I will be making a run to Edinburgh in the next few weeks, though.  I'll get a supply when I'm there." 

Tulojow shifted in her seat, drawing her legs up crossed underneath her as she listened to the young man's current dilemma.  She remained quiet for a few moments, even after he finished his explanation.  "It's possible," Tulojow finally asked, after a few moment's thought.  "Does the blurriness seem to come and go with the headaches or is it constant."  She pushed herself to her feet and crossed the room towards one of the bookshelves that flanked the hearth.

Alvis smiled at the appearance of the house elf, giving Pippy a thankful nod that didn't break his conversation with Madame Nagde. He'd grown quite fond of house elves in the last year. Besides Pippy, whose kind care was already remembered fondly, he'd gotten to know Casey O'Doherty's companion Dingy and a number of those who worked the kitchens. There was something comforting about them.

At Madame Nagde's mentioned of the journal, Alvis rubbed his neck. "Ah, yes, I have. Well...you know." From his bag he pulled a folded piece of parchment, which bore a long list of times, locations, and extraneous details. His actual 'headache journal' took the form of notations scribbled in the margins of whatever he had available at the time, which he then collected as best he could when it came time to visit the healer.

"I don't think I missed any this time," he said, passing the parchment to Madame Nagde. They were in plain English, too. Alvis got so used to his own writing style that he sometimes forgot to translate the concise strings of symbols and short-hand into something other people could read.

He pursed his lips at the healer's next question, considering it carefully. He turned his head slightly, focusing on the wooden wall beyond Madame Nagde. "I think it's constant. I don't have a headache now, but...I can't see the knots in the wood. There are knots over there, aren't there?"

He squinted. He thought he could make out discolored dots in the otherwise smooth surface, but he wasn't entirely sure. After a moment, he closed his eyes and shook his head. "I think it'd give me a headache if I stared too much, though. I've been getting them a lot during class lately, especially potions. Is...Is that bad?"