Today might have been like any other day. On second thoughts, Adrianna mused as she hauled the groaning man by one arm into the hospital reception area, it was at least more interesting than any of the previous days.

The Aurors had been given a tip-off about a suspect with ties to Dark magic lurking around Diagon Alley earlier that day, and Adrianna had taken on the job since she was one of the earliest to come in. Trying to stay dry for the sake of the Leaky Cauldron investigations was dull; alcohol at least gave her a sense of excitement, but she knew very guiltily that it wasn't going to help her in the long run.

She'd flown off to the alley and found him being sick in one of the smaller back alleys. At the sight of the watchful magpie turning into a red-clad woman he'd tried to run, but as he found out the hard way it was difficult to run while you were trying to not projectile vomit. Adrianna had politely, if coldly, suggested helping him to the hospital and while he wasn't necessarily pleased that she was coming along he didn't have much of a chance to say no.

Thankfully a lapse in the man's throwing up made way for a quick apparation, and after letting him throw up again in the drain next to Purge and Dowse Ltd, she was here now.

"Hi, which floor it is for assumed food poisoning?" she asked the welcome witch politely, though in a tone that suggested she didn't believe it one bit. The witch pointed her to the third floor.

Upon reaching said floor, she was unsure of where to go next. Did one make an appointment? Or just throw the patient at the healers? She wasn't inclined to throw this man at the healers; weak as he was, he seemed about prepared to make a break for it. Too guilty to trust. She took a moment from her wondering to cast a Full Body-Bind Curse on him to stop him from struggling.

A healer - or whoever she thought was one - was passing by at that very moment. Adrianna stepped into the path. "Excuse me," she said, "someone here needs some help, but I'm not sure where to go."

Healer Gawmdrey or rather Yawndry as the Third Floor staff quietly called him when they knew he couldn't hear was giving a demonstration of how to take an accurate temperature with a thermometer in a very personal place.

A small cluster of trainees were gathered within the curtains with him for the demonstration. At the back, rolling her eyes at the tedious and overly thorough demonstration, Elixa had slipped away as soon as she twigged Yawndry was preoccupied by the query from a fresh-faced Hogwarts graduate at the front. She could take a temperature in an arsehole without needing a half hour demonstration. It was a good job the patient was docile.

"Excuse me,"

The voice was somewhat familiar from somewhere, but Elixa couldn't place it. Her dark eyes swept in the auror and her motley charge.

"Someone here needs some help, but I'm not sure where to go."

Elixa paused for the briefest of moments, glancing back, but she could hear Gawmdrey's voice continue to groan. She could do this, it'd be fine.

"No worries, what's up?" She took a critical look at the man being held up, he looked grey, woozy, eyes unfocused. Her hand reached out and pressed against his forehead, feeling his temperature, a little raised, but clammy. "Let's find him somewhere to rest a moment so I can help." She suggested and beckoned them both on.

She didn't care if Gawmdrey noticed, being useful solving someone's problem was a far better plan.
"Here we go." It took a moment to get their charge up onto the bed, and the motion caused the pitch forward to once again empty his stomach. Elixa only just managed to step out of the way in time. Recent days had given her a bit of revision on vomit-dodging. She was almost as well versed as temperature-taking, one might say.

Peering over at the splattered floor, Elixa sniffed. and inspected the vomit with a little more detail as if it were a finely detailed painting upon the hospital floor.
"Right." She said to herself, drawing her wand to evanesco it all off the floor. "Pop yourself back, darling, take the pressure off your stomach. What's your name…?" As she collected the information from the patient, between heaves (a bucket was normally close to hand, it was level three after all) Elixa stole occasional glances at the auror. Where had she come across her before? It was bothering her!

"Well, from what you emptied out a moment ago," Elixa eventually surmised, "and from what you've said, it sounds like you ate something off. Then you should just let the body do what it needs to do." He pitched forward again, head vanishing into the bucket. Elixa took the moment to look to the auror.

"Is he under arrest?" She asked, over the sound of splatters on the bucket.

Relieved that this staff could help her, Adrianna took the curse off the man before this healer took over. Healer? She was wearing different robes from the others. Maybe? Whatever, it was not her business.

She was very helpful, that was for certain, even if Adrianna had to step back a bit when her charge found his cue to be sick again. Her focus shifted to the woman she was helping. There was something familiar about her, but Adrianna couldn't place it - she'd dunked her brain in alcohol after that night, so she wasn't surprised she couldn't remember. She'd ask later.

"Yes, he is," the auror replied. "Under suspected relations with the Dark Arts. Got to bring him back for questioning, so I'll be here a bit more then." She shrugged. "How long is this going to take? I'm not in a hurry, but it would be nice to know."

Adrianna would have left it at that, except a pondering question had just floated up to the surface of the mind. "Since I'm here...do you guys give out hangover cures? Or is that something you can just buy from an apothecary? Or is that not even a thing here because it's a little too minor for the likes of the hospital," she gestured vaguely at her surroundings, "to deal with."

That sounded more questionable than it had in her mind.

"Depends how much he ate," Elixa admitted, "Hopefully once he's chucked it all up, he'll be alright to sit quietly with some water for a while. Depends if the other end starts…" She gestured behind herself with one hand and made a face. There had been enough arse discussion before with the temperature taking.

"Sounds like you have a good day in store, Sir." Elixa remarked back at the captive patient who looked up, a dribble of sick on his chin. He wasn't going anywhere quickly by the state of him. "We'll top you up with some fluids as soon as you're done. Sit quietly. You'll feel better when it's all out."

She turned back to the auror. "Couple of hours, likely."

The auror's follow-up query was more likely to herself, she figured.
"Hangover cures? We do have a few, yes, occasionally people come in here thinking they're at death's door because they've drunk so much they've forgotten they've been drinking. I tend to find a strong cup of tea follow up works wonders. You can get-" she paused, realising what she was saying. "Ah. I'll see what I can do."

It took five or so minutes, but Elixa returned eventually, with a mug of tea in one hand and a set of notes in the other.
"Here you go, hold this a tick will you?" She handed over the mug and put the notes down on the bed beside the patient's leg. Reaching into the pocket of her green robes, she pulled out bottle and unstoppered it, dropping three times into the mug of tea and tapping it.
"Best one in my opinion." She stoppered it again and slid it back into her pocket before tapping her wand to the mug to stir the tea. "I've tried them all, thrice." She winked and reached for the notes.

Adrianna was slightly caught off guard when Elixa handed her the mug, but she was gracious enough to accept and watch the woman add the potion to the contents of the mug. The brown-black tea swirled by itself as she watched, bemused by everything happening, and distracted by her mind racing to place this woman's identity.

Where had she met this woman? She seemed...familiar. Without really thinking, the auror drank from the mug as she mused over the people she'd met recently. No, this woman was not in those files, but...hm. That voice. She was sure that she'd heard it before.

"Hang on," she said, lowering her mug, unaware that she had been staring at Elixa the whole time she'd been drinking, "I'm sorry, but I know I've met you somewhere. Where exactly? If I don't ask now it's going to bother me for the entire day and I'll probably end up drinking again just to get away from it. I'm sure you don't want to see me tomorrow again asking for another hangover cure, and I don't want another one either."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're a healer, right? Were you at the Leaky Cauldron on the fifth? I remember there were a lot of healers over there, were you one of them? Maybe it was from there?"

"How we doing here?" She asked her patient once the hangover cure was dispensed to the auror. He was still looking a bit worse for wear, but nothing she couldn't treat with fluids and a rehydration potion. She busied herself with them and then straightened the patient's bed around him.

It surprised her a little to be asked about the Leaky Cauldron after the auror reckoned she knew her. Lix was about to suggest they'd met out drinking, and that's possibly why neither of them accurately recalled.

"November 5th?" She echoed, looking ever so slightly awkward. "Er, yeah, I was there…" In return she was now studying the auror intently. "Trapped under a table by the last blast. Like a pro, not." She looked embarrassed and coughed out of being reminded. "Was a mess. One of you guys lifted all the crap off me so I could get out with a patient. He was under an upturned bath."

Table? Well, there had been a number of tables, this being the Leaky Cauldron after all, but bath? Adrianna remembered the upturned bath, the prostrate man with the curly hair, and...yes, a dark-haired lady whose features she hadn't been able to see much in the semi-darkness. The fires around them had been distant at best and played merry hell with one's sight. But she definitely remembered the tin bath.

"I dealt with helping a woman retrieve a man from under a bath, yes, so that must have been you." The auror took a quick glance at her, taking in her appearance. "That was me! I hope you weren't too injured by the table, or the blast? I couldn't see in the darkness very well, so if I'd ignored your injuries, I'm sorry..."

The hangover cure had worked better than she'd expected. Normally her alcoholic haze left her a solemn, dispirited soul where drink at least made her focus on the now rather than the past. Now she was her usual self - energetic, keen, interested. "How was the other bloke, the one trapped under the bath?" she asked. "Was he all right? Hopefully that tin bath didn't do a number on his brain, that would've been pretty bad."

At the auror's words, colour flushed Elixa's cheeks. It hadn't been her finest moment in the Leaky Cauldron by any means and as much as she was eternally grateful for her rescue, she was also rather mortified. The red-robed witch looked her up and down like she was sizing up Lix's possibility to be a bumbling healer in a collapsed building.

"… if I'd ignored your injuries, I'm sorry…"

"Don't apologise," Lix raised a hand and blinked slowly, trying to speak calmly. The hangover cure must have been taking effect as the auror seemed to be brighter than she had before.

"How was the other bloke, the one trapped under the bath?"

"He's - he's fine. No lasting damage that I know of. He was here a couple of weeks. The bath pretty much protected him from being crushed. He was lucky. Er, thanks for saving us both. I couldn't move where I was to even turn my wand. Stupid really. I feel rather foolish." Her shoulders rounded and she scribbled with a quill on the notes, self consciously brushing a strand of hair that wasn't there back from her face. Her hair, forever pinned up at work, was charmed in place.

"You were certainly saving lives that night." She added politely, "Good job you all got there when you did. Still no news on what caused it, right?"

"Still no news on what caused it, right?" At this Adrianna looked like she'd drunk a gallon of coffee to go with that hangover cure. She'd heard that the Improper Use of Magic was investigating - in fact, news had got around that the site was closed for a week by them - but then there had been nothing else. Which was worrying even for her, but there was no time to spend thinking about it. She was an auror. As far as she was concerned, apprehending the criminals was her task, not sorting out puzzles.

"No." And somehow that made her feel as if she hadn't done anything to help, either. They had saved people, but if no one was going to clear it up then such an event could repeat. "I think that's not good, but what do I know? I'm not involved in that. Just picking up rabble like him," she motioned at the man on the bed with her head.

"I'm glad you got out fine." Adrianna's relieved tone was more than pronounced. "And him. I was wondering who'd managed to get out and...who didn't make it. I didn't know what happened after that night to any of you." Something the woman had said earlier came back to her. "I didn't save that many lives, I think. Or, to be honest, I'm surprised if I saved any at all, since I was, uh...maybe on my way to drinking myself silly." The auror had the decency to look contrite.

"I'm sorry, I...didn't catch your name...?" she added hastily.

"Elixa," The healer replied without hesitation, suddenly feeling a little better about the situation on November 5th for hearing the auror's bashful comment. "Elixa Mordent. Call me Lix." She dropped the notes back to where they should be and extended a hand to shake after a brief glance down to be sure she hadn't accidentally got something on her hand.

"The paper was full of it being deliberate. I guess it would be odd if it wasn't - how it all looked. And if it had been an accident, we'd have heard by now, right?" She shrugged, frowning slightly. "Whatever the smoke was, it hung on for days. You didn't get too badly caught with that, did you? I was trying all sorts of things to shift it." Her hand went to rest upon her chest in the memory of the irritating cough.

"Adrianna Xin." The auror took her hand, smiling a little, but she didn't realise what she said until a few seconds later. "You have a pretty name. Oh, I'm sorry, this isn't...the right environment." She waved a hand as if trying to brush off the fact that she'd said that.

"I don't think it was an accident, but that's just me saying." She was quick to add that. Saying things that could be construed as official outside of the Auror Headquarters was not high on her agenda. Compared to most of the other aurors she wasn't really privy to anything of a sensitive nature. "No, I didn't catch the smoke - I was using a Bubble-Head charm." Elixa's hand on her chest did not go amiss. "I would have cast it for you, but  I was afraid the rest of the pub might fall in if we stayed any longer. You and that man were the last people I got out of the pub before I retreated to the Ministry for the night." Adrianna shuddered. "I...don't really like being around fire and structurally compromised places."

She gestured to Elixa's hand. "But you? Or was there a remedy? I mean, you're a healer, you'd know that sort of thing better than me..."

That was a name Lix would have appreciated repeating. She tried not to look phased as they shook hands, but her eyebrows raised just a little at hearing it.
"You have a pretty name. Oh, I'm sorry, this isn't...the right environment."

Lix laughed gently, "It's ok, thank you. Yours is erm, lovely too." It was more for not seeing such a comment coming in the professional environment than embarrassment that her return was equally fumbled.

"I'll take a cough over being crushed." Lix nodded at the explanation. "Thanks."

"But you? Or was there a remedy? I mean, you're a healer, you'd know that sort of thing better than me..."

"Bit of both in the end I think. Nature took its course and I probably covered every respiratory ailment in the process with my potions." She grinned. "But hangover remedies, those I'm all over. Your head feeling better, I take it?"

Adrianna made a small sigh in relief hearing that the healer had found some remedy. The quality of the smoke had left her feeling a little ill even for a few seconds of inhaling, though it'd not left a lasting impression on her health.

"I'm feeling much better now, thank you. Head's clearer, I don't feel so down. There isn't a cure for not giving in to the temptation of drinking, I assume? I suppose not." She shrugged. "I'll handle it somehow. As for him, though," she nodded to the man she was keeping an eye on, "I hope I'm not dragging him in just to be told he's not involved with whatever he was suspected of doing."

She looked back at Mordent. "But at least I've managed to find out that you're okay." The auror smiled. "I hope the others that I managed to help out are doing fine just as well as you are, honestly. One can just hope."

"Sadly, or not sadly, there isn't, or if there ever was the alcohol brewers would have to pay us plenty never to let it out to the public." Lix grinned.

Attention turned back to the patient, Xin's prisoner. "I'm sure he's thankful you got him here either way. No lasting damage to the others from what I know, well, apart from a few in spell damage." Her mind had slipped to Margo. "… But that is rather a generalisation. I can't speak on specific cases, confidentiality and all." The Healer in Training shrugged. "I think everyone is still reeling and licking their wounds in private. It'll be Christmas before anyone starts making claims that their lives are ruined."

Further down the ward she saw the curtains around the patient Yawndry was demonstrating on twitch and her face fell a bit, wondering if her absence would be noted or frowned upon particularly, especially since she was attending to a new patient. There was only so much someone could talk about taking a temperature with a bottom, and Yawndry was going for a world record.

"Still, dramatic way to end my first week back in healer's robes." She muttered, "I er, he'll be here a couple of hours, but I'll pop back in half an hour or so to top him up with rehydration fluids. See if I can get him out the door with you sooner."

Licking their wounds. Adrianna made a grimace at that before she caught herself. Whoops. Just that phrase alone made her want to scratch a non-existent itch off the two scars on her face. She just smiled at the healer's statement instead; the joke was not lost on her.

"So...do I have to be here for two hours?" she asked. "I, uh, hospitals are fine with me, I just don't necessarily like having to hang around in one longer than usual. Bit of a dreary place to be, what with all the sick and injured and sad people around." The auror waved a hand vaguely at her surroundings. "I hope you guys get the respect you deserve for serving the country's ill and injured almost twenty-four-seven."

Adrianna looked around. "But I guess if there's not an option...I'm just worried he might bolt, see, if I go back to the office to clear up some paperwork while I wait for him to get better. Waiting room for me, I guess?" she asked in a resigned tone, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the lobby she'd passed on her way in. "Or have you a better suggestion? I hope you're allowed to tie a patient to their bed if they might cause trouble...?"