Maybe it had been a while since the explosion on Bonfire Night, but it was only now that Arcturus felt at more ease and less backed up with work. His floor was quiet in the afternoons, there was a surprising lack of appointments, and he had finished most of his work. The rest he was saving for the graveyard shift tonight, since he was expecting it to be calm enough to be able to slip away and resume working on potions.

The healer ran a hand through his hair, looking through the documents on his desk. Most of them he was already done with. He shut them and shifted the pile to one side (the "done" side, as he liked to call it), when he noticed his hand was trailing several strands of white. Keeping his fingers together, he lifted his hand.

Most people tended to guess that the white side of his hair was dyed. He could see why. His parents' own white hair wasn't really white, it was more transparent - he'd been utterly excited to find that out. But for him the hair was really white, completely bleached of all colour. Arcturus knew what the actual problem was, but he honestly couldn't be bothered to go into detail most of the time.

Lately he'd been noticing more white hair on the floor or his clothes of late. Arcturus didn't want to go half-bald at his age; even with the magical means to replace or fake his hair, he didn't really want to use those either. He had his reasons.

Either way, perhaps it was just his head telling him to actually do something about it. Arcturus found a small envelope and dropped the loose hairs into it, and then headed out of his office and upstairs to the fourth floor.

Flynn was nowhere to be seen, which most likely meant he was in his office. He felt a guilty pang from realising he'd never really gone to see Flynn after he'd returned from Malaysia. That was rude, and considering he was trying to get better with that issue at least to him he should be making some effort.

He knocked on the door of the office as he opened it, and then poked his head around it to check if, indeed, its designated occupant was within. "Hey, Flynn? I hope I'm not interrupting."

Things were starting to get back to normal after the explosions. Diagon Alley did not feel the same without the Leaky Cauldron. Thankfully, he hadn't lost anyone he knew. Francis and Monty, though they had been there-- were perfectly fine. Neither had looked good when they came in-- but who did?

Such a mass event added to the pile of paperwork that healers-in-charge generally had to deal with. In his spare time, that was what Flynn was stuck with. Paperwork. He still saw patients frequently, and was glad that Healer Elliot wasn't someone who expected him to only do one thing or the other. He could do both. He was finding his groove in all of this chaos. His personal research had been put on hold, but that was only temporary.

He heard a knock on the door and looked up, only to be greeted with a welcome face. Flynn greeted his friend with a smile and motioned for him to come in and sit. "It's only paperwork." The healer replied, "Make yourself comfortable. It's been too long." Flynn had missed Arc when he left, but he was a low maintenance friend-- like a cactus, only less prickly.

"Too long indeed," Arcturus agreed as he fully entered the office. He shut the door behind him, the sounds of staff passing by abruptly cut off by the click of the door. "How've you been, Flynn? I hope you didn't lose any sleep over the Leaky Cauldron casualties?" In truth he hadn't either, but the explosions had reminded him of a few things that he tended to keep firmly locked away anyway.

He sat down in the chair in front of Flynn, feeling somewhat like a patient come to see someone else. "Sorry for not coming to see you after I came back," he said. "Thanks for giving me a reason to get out from under the Head Healer. I've been stupid of late, I hope you forgive me for all of...that. Leaving without saying anything beforehand, coming back without saying beforehand - I think I've made a bit of a fool out of myself."

Stop stalling for time, you don't have that much. Arcturus sighed. He'd really prefer that Flynn and he had a small chat before getting into the meat of the problem, and he didn't much feel like listening to that rational snarky part of him. "How did you fare with the injuries?" he asked. "I hope you lost no one? Or were all the deaths only in the pub? I heard you went down there in an instant and came out saving people left and right." He smiled.

Out of all the people he knew from Hogwarts around his generation, let alone his own house, Flynn was one of the few he had kept in contact with. Not that he could help it - they, after all, worked in the same place. But Flynn was at least one of the genuine friends Arcturus had made while in school despite shutting himself in the library on weekends and becoming the resident bookworm of the Ravenclaw common room for seven years.

Flynn shrugged off Arcturus' apology. It was unnecessary. Too late to apologize, as he had already been forgiven.

"We're all fools here, Arc." The wizard replied humorously. Part of him had been just a liiiitttle bit irritated that Arc had failed to reply to letters, but that little bit of irritation was quickly forgotten. Flynn was not usually one to hold a grudge. He didn't see how grudges did any good, it just added unnecessary stress that he simply did not need in his life. His job provided enough of that for him, as much as he loved it.

  "How did you fare with the injuries? I hope you lost no one? Or were all the deaths only in the pub? I heard you went down there in an instant and came out saving people left and right."

Flynn grinned, "We managed. I got a bit scuffed up, but nothing episkey couldn't fix." He admitted.

The healer set aside his papers and for the first time, got a good look at Arc. "There's a reason you came in here, it's not just because you missed my charming face, is it?"

Some small part of Arc was slightly anxious about actually bringing the real matter up, but the rest of him was more than relieved. Small talk really wasn't his forte.

"You're right." His shoulders relaxed, though not by much as he considered how to word the situation. There was a tiny bit of a problem with this one, after all. But in his opinion, the consequences of softening his words didn't seem favourable in this situation. "The white side of my hair is thinning a little faster than what I'm comfortable with. Before you ask about what dye sank into my scalp and therefore why I'm doing on your floor when it seems to be my forte...it wasn't a dyeing accident. I lied."

His gaze latched on Flynn's face, searching for any trace of anger or bewilderment. At the time, he'd given that lie to anyone and everyone who had asked. "In summer '97, I had a hex sent my way. It hit me on the right side of my head. The hair on that side has never grown since, but I'm really partial to keeping it the way it is. The healers back then said it's incurable, so I'm just looking to not go half-bald before I'm a hundred."

Arc gave him a quick smile. "I don't want you to feel like I'm only coming to you now because I have a problem, but," his gaze flickered downwards, "I don't know who else to go to, and you're good at what you do."

"Ah, knew my charming face wasn't the reason." Flynn said in mock disappointment, before quickly putting on the serious-healer hat. Arc's white hair was thinning... And it didn't grow, so if Arc wasn't careful, if nothing was done about it... Then that entire side of his head would be bald sooner than he'd like.

Flynn hardly cared that there was a lie. He nodded, appreciating that the truth was coming out. There were few things more annoying than a patient who was lying about the reason behind their condition. It made finding a cure or treatment much more difficult. He listened patiently as Arc explained what actually caused the duo-toned hair. The healers back then said it was incurable? Flynn was skeptical. Just because something was incurable doesn't mean that treatment wasn't possible to keep it from getting worse. Those healers were idiots, though he didn't vocalize that opinion.

"What kind of hex was it?" He inquired, "What color? Do you remember the wand movement?" All important questions when it came to spell damage.  Flynn gave his friend a smile, "I'm glad you came to me. I'll do my best."

Arc leaned his head back and closed his eyes to try and remember. "It was non-verbal, I had no idea what sh-- it was. Um, I remember yellow light, a beam? As for wand movement..." He struggled for a few seconds and then gave up. "I've got nothing for that. It's been over a decade, I can't remember so many of the details now." And he'd blocked out much of the memory as well due to being loathe towards the accompanying shame.

"It took about a day to start turning at the roots, which I assume was because it was my scalp, not hair, that got hit. Turned white rapidly over the course of two days. I still have black roots for some of the hair at the top of my neck," he reached up absently to slip his fingers under the white strands, "but there's really no growth even so. It fell out at a normal rate until recently. I'm not leaving hairs all over the place like a cat at the touch of anything, thankfully, but it's still unnerving to have your hair drop out whenever you need to placate an itch."

Arc bit his lower lip. What else... "I've tried a few known remedies to maintain it, traditional and otherwise, but none of them have worked. I don't know what else is there. It's not like I don't take care of my hair every day, it's a given. Done that ever since I started growing it out." He shrugged. "Is there anything else I'm missing?"