1000 hours


Raine had deliberately scheduled her appointment with the Head Healer on a Friday, keen to make a weekend headline that would go unnoticed - and hopefully on one of the Prophet's lesser pages. She'd especially requested today off by trading shifts for another trainee's Sunday drudgery.

It was raining outside and the hospital itself carrier the inner peace of a cosy shelter, away from London's damp and cold.

The young witch slipped her black umbrella into a provided holder as she entered the reception to Storm's office. That was weird. Storm. Miranda Storm, married to Ignan Storm. In lots of ways, she didn't think she could possibly hate someone of whom Professor Storm approved - nonetheless she wasn't optimistic. Healer Storm had a reputation that was difficult to miss and Godric knew that the name 'Almasy' wasn't exactly welcome in the very halls once plagued by her aunt Ira's many victims.

But that was why she had come. To make things right again.

"Good morning," Raine smiled tightly at Delilah. "Almasy, Raine. I owled about a meeting earlier this week? To arrange for a contribution," she supplied her purpose just in case - someone had told her that Storm often got names wrong, and she wanted to be helpful if  the older witch suffered from memory issues and needed to be reminded of these things by her assistant.

She uncoupled the collar of her cape, not quite ready to remove it. Like armour. Raine felt too young to be doing this and she suddenly wished she had sent her lawyer instead. It was too late for that now.

“Oh yes! Almasy!” Delilah provided the visitor with a warm smile after glancing at Miranda’s schedule. “Yes, I remember, now. She mentioned you this morning.” It was a look of mild concern for Raine that started to twist Delilah’s features as she thought of the morning. “She’s not in the best of moods today, Miss Almasy.” She felt the need to say, but, when was she? Sometimes Delilah wondered if Miranda’s good mood was a normal person’s bad mood.

“Enjoy!” The assistant waved her hand at the closed door. Raine Almasy was free to pass into the Ice Queen’s throne room.

To be fair, Miranda wasn’t in as negative a mood as Delilah made out. And if she was, there was reason for her having been mildly more ancy than usual over the past few days. Three days ago, on Tuesday, it had been the anniversary of her 1st husband’s death. Of course, it didn’t affect her like it did usually, but on may have noticed how she was somewhat snappier around the hospital than usual.

“Miss Almasy,” Miranda looked up as the office door opened. She’d been bent over some documents with an analysis of how the new potions lab was performing. They were starting to break even, starting to see the rewards after months.

Sitting back in her chair, Miranda pushed her glasses up onto her head and found her gaze raking over Raine Almasy. She’d met Ira Almasy a couple of times, sat down at her dinner table only to be sickened to her stomach and shocked by the wizard flying through the window. Raine didn’t look like her aunt. Hopefully she didn’t act like her either.

“I must say, I was intrigued to read your owl.” The Head Healer debated standing and taking the comfortable sofa and armchairs for this surprise meetings, but instead chose to remain sat at the desk and simply waved at the seat opposite. Raine’s aunt was behind it all, wasn’t she? Had she not done what she’d done, Musgrave and Bombay would never have come to their house. Ignan would never have almost died in this hospital.

It was just her luck to catch Healer Storm in a bad mood, if the personal assistant was true to her word. Raine had seen her fair share of moods however - Professor Storm, Ira, Ed Pratt, Carstairs. What was one more to weather?

The older witch was ensconced by paperwork and looking exactly how one would imagine a Head Healer should at their place of work. Younger than she had realised, though that was always the case when you saw somebody who you had conceived as a proper grownup when you were still at school. A seat across from the desk was offered.

"Thank you" Raine smiled politely, undoing her cape and letting the enchanted clasp carry it off to lay on the back of the chair. "Yes, I thought it would be best to inform you of my intent before I spoke to our lawyers."

Our. The Almasys had a good law firm on retainer, the kind that usually did this sort of thing for rich pureblood families in Europe. Not quite Talisha Crowe. Ira had her own legal advisors, separate from the Russian clan, but she'd defaulted for her Will to be executed by their usual agents. Raine had regularly been meeting with the firm to sort out the mess she'd inherited.

"I'll be brief and to the point," she folded her hands in her lap, looking rather prim with her legs tucked underneath and ankles delicately crossed, "I mean to make a donation to the hospital. Half of what remains of my late aunt's fortune. It's no small amount and there will be some press."

Raine did not like The Daily Prophet but she knew that the best thing she could do, both for her conscience and the respectability of her surname, was to ensure the donation was seen in the best possible public light.

Despite the girl’s background and family ties being so unpleasantly linked to recent experiences of the past year, Miranda gave Raine Almasy the same respect that she would to any other visitor to her office. Her paperwork and admin lay ignored on her desk and she fixed her dark eyed gaze on her guest. Truthfully, she had indeed been intrigued by the request for a meeting. A brief mention had been made to Ignan, commenting on the bizarity of the situation. This young red head, it so turned out, was one of the former students whom her husband happened to tolerate. His lip certainly hadn’t curled in disgust, anyhow.

The donation, Miranda had been prepared for. The owl had made that clear. But this was Ira Almasy’s money. Blood money. Money from the bloodied backs of her victims. A more pretentious witch may have turned her nose up. Miranda didn’t interrupt. In fact, she remained silent as Delilah came in quickly with a teatray which she placed on the desk. She moved to start pouring but Miranda shook her head and the assistant retreated back to her outer office.

“Sugar?” Miranda took her time in pouring the tea and adding milk to stir. Her seat creaked as she sat back and lifted her own teacup to her lips for a sip.
“Is this an altruistic move, Miss Almasy, or an attempt to secure some positive publicity for your family?” The Head Healer finally asked carefully. It was a question she knew the board would be asking. She wasn’t sure how much press she could handle about Ira Almasy’s money. There would be a lot of people opposed to her accepting it, even if it was to do good.

Both to her surprise and relief, Miranda Storm did not flat out refuse.

Raine didn't think she would - it could have been done in writing, if so - but she harboured the fear anyway. The problem with money is that keeping it was always a bad idea, and sometimes you just had more money than you knew exactly what to do with. Wizarding money didn't fluctuate as much as muggle money of course (gold!) but she didn't want to keep what she did not need.

"No sugar, thank you," she nodded absently, trying to get over the surprise of having her tea poured by the Head Healer at St.Mungo's. Oh she was definitely telling Abby about this later, regardless of how the meeting turned out.

            "Is this an altruistic move, Miss Almasy, or an attempt to secure some positive publicity for your family?"

Storm, much like her husband at Hogwarts, came straight to the point. Raine picked up her tea and glanced into it for a second. The truth - better to go with the truth, people like Miranda could probably smell a lie on her.

"Neither - or a bit of both, if I'm being honest," she confessed before taking a long sip of tea and setting down the cup. "You know of Feliks, I think, so you know that my aunt essentially disinherited him."

Speaking about it made her feel like her insides were boiling, a combination of anger and of guilt; the inheritance had come to her instead, for ridiculous reasons.

"The other half of the fortune, it's his." Raine continued to explain, hands clasped together. "But my half, I wanted to do something good with the Almasy name. I want him to know it's not... not what people think it is. So I thought this might be a way to begin doing that."

A very small step in the right direction.

Surprisingly, Raine Almasy didn’t take the chance to pretend this was an altruistic move. In Miranda’s experience, no one was ever truly altruistic. Everyone had motivation for performing good deeds. A relative of Ira Almasy donating money to St Mungo’s would never be a truthfully selfless move. Almasy was responsible for so many deaths, including within these walls. This girl’s aunt had been responsible for poisoning Miranda herself; thus, leaving St Mungo’s without it’s leader at the helm almost a year ago.

Miranda knew of Felix, but, unlike Ignan, she hadn’t yet met the boy. He’d spoken of him briefly, but, in truth, Miranda wasn’t all that interested in discussing the situation. It reminded both of Ignan’s situation with Sasha, a problem neither spouse was happy discussing.

“It certainly is.” The Head Healer remarked with a nod. She lowered her teacup back to her desk and sat back in her oversized leather chair. “And I thank you for chosing St Mungo’s.” Her aunt had, after all, caused such a catastrophe. Miranda remembered being questioned about it, aurors suspicious that she’d orchestrated something to get her own policies agreed by the board of warlocks. “There are a few ways you can choose to approach this. You could donate for a specific purpose. We are setting up a more purpose-built werewolf wing, for example. Although I don’t see the public taking kindly to it carrying the name of Almasy. You could, perhaps my preferred option, donate towards our herbology and potions brewing, an initiative set up in the aftermath of the poisonings. It depends if you want to be seen as making up for your aunt’s deeds, or paying forward.”

The options were both attractive ones - even if she knew that the Daily Prophet would verbally crucify her if she donated to the werewolf wing and insisted upon it carrying the Almasy surname. No. She wasn't going to do that. If she did, the name would still and forever be associated with what her aunt had carried out.

"Thank you," she smiled at the older witch while grappling with the decision. "I'm very sympathetic to the werewolf cause, I'm sure you know, because of... because of what was done to them. And to their victims." Raine would never forget what she saw had happened to Zel Trumble when he was kidnapped.

Maybe that was a good thing, not forgetting. She wondered whether that mirror was still gathering dust in an evidence room on level two.

Raine picked up her tea cup again, firmly collecting her thoughts so that Miranda didn't think she was hesitating. "You're right, it wouldn't do for the wing to carry our name," she wasn't even sure if Feliks would appreciate that touch anyway - the clan itself wasn't exactly fond of werewolves, and the matriarch would have probably been upset.

"Would it be possible to donate the amount without naming the wing?" Raine suggested, wrinkling her nose. "It's just that I feel like I owe a debt to that community. The papers will still print the donation, I don't need Almasy to be stamped across anything for posterity. Not because of her, you understand."

If there was ever going to be a reason for the name to go down in history, as a lasting monument, she wanted it to be because of something worthy rather than compensation.

“Of course.” The smile that twisted Miranda’s lips was a rare sort. For Raine Almasy, she felt mind sympathy. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to be forced to live with the horrors committed by close family members. For years, Miranda had lived in her father’s shadow, expected to excel in his field. That in itself had been a challenge. But to fight against the prejudices that this girl must? Well, Miranda wanted to help as she could.

“I understand, Miss Almasy.” With a nod, the Head Healer pulled over her diary and opened it. It was a thick leather-bound book, magically matched with one sat on Delilah’s desk outside, and one in the office at home. Anything written in one was magically duplicated in the other two. “Have you thought anything on figures, timelines?” She began to flick through a few pages. “Our hospital spokeswitch might be the best to discuss press coverage with. She’s far more experienced with that then myself.” It was no secret that Miranda did what she could to stay out of the public eye when it came to the papers. She was the leader of St Mungo’s, but she had never wanted to be the face of it. That was left to those less likely to tell a reporter where to shove his or her quill. “I can have my assistant arrange a meeting.”