I'll Catch You (A Harry Potter Fan Fiction)

The Daydream

"So, tell me again what you're doing today?" George asked through the phone. I stood on a street corner, huddled inside of the phone booth that was currently protecting me from the pouring rain outside.

"George Fabian Weasley, for the thousandth time today I am going to St. Mungo's so I can get some pamphlets on the Healers program" I rolled my eyes and tucked the phone between my head and my shoulder so my hands were free.


"That sounds dreadfully boring" he yawned.


"Well then you can go and have fun in your little prank shop okay? I should be back at my place in about an hour, maybe more than that." I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and adjusted my scarf before I leaned against the plastic wall of the booth.


"But I want you home now" he whined and I couldn't help but chuckle.


"And why would that be?" I asked, shifting the phone from one shoulder to another.


"You know why" he said childishly. I could almost picture him waggling his eyebrows as he said so. Suddenly, there was a succession of rapid fire beeps from the other end of the line.


"Did you accidently hit some of the buttons again?" I sighed.


"Perhaps."


"You are hopeless" I laughed and shook my head. "Now listen, if you want to see me before the day is through, I'm going to have to hang up the phone now."


"NO! Ace, come on! Talk with me a little while longer, will yah? I'm bored out of my skull!"


"Oh fine" I sighed and looked out the plastic windows of the booth. People were running up and down the street, umbrella's held overhead as they tried to avoid being soaked. "What do you want to talk about?"


"I don't know..... What are you wearing?" he asked, his voice dropping below a whisper.


"You have to be kidding me!" I said, only slightly shocked at his conversation topic.


"Just answer the question, woman, and make it entertaining."


I lulled my head back against the window and looked up at the faded red ceiling. "My beige trench coat.....?" Merlin, I was horrible at this. The whole idea of talking 'sexily' over the phone was absolutely ridiculous. I felt like a complete sod, standing in the phone booth and attempting to talk dirty to my boyfriend, something I wouldn't even do face to face.


"Go on...." I could hear the smirk in his voice as he prompted me.


"George! This is stupid! I have absolutely no idea how to do this sort of thing and I feel like an idiot!" I hissed into the receiver and George laughed on the other line.


"You're doing brilliantly, love, I assure you. Now what are you wearing underneath the beige trench coat?"


"Uhm.... nothing?" I said, sounding more like a buffoon than anyone who could ever be classified as sexy.


"So you're going to walk into the hospital in nothing but a trench coat?" he asked, half curious, half incredulous.


"Yep."


"You're a dirty little liar" he said.


"Do you want to bet?" I asked, biting my lip. Fine, if he was going to subject me to talking like this over the phone, then he would have to deal with the consequences.


"As a matter of fact, yes, yes I do" he challenged.


"Fine. Then when I'm done here, I'll go to your place and we'll find out who the winner is" I said and pulled the phone away from my ear for a second while I snickered. "I'm going to hang up now."


"Wait!" George yelled and I put the phone back to my ear.

"What?" I sighed falsely.


"What does the winner win?" he asked anxiously.


"Whatever they want" I whispered and hung the phone up.


______________________________________________________________________________


"Hello" I said, leaning over the counter at the Welcome Witch's desk. The same woman that was here before snapped her fingers and pointed the pile of papers on her desk.


"I'm busy" she said and I rolled my eyes before turning on my heel away from her. Why she was placed at a 'welcome witch' desk, I would never know.


I remained in that train of thought, pondering the qualifications of a welcome witch as I made my way across the lobby. Of course, it wasn't the only thing I was thinking about. The longer I stayed in the hospital, the harder the walls seemed to pulsate. The rhythmic beats seemed to synchronize with my heart, the pounding getting louder and louder in my ears.


Stay away from the Janus-Thickey Ward, she said above the sound of my heart.


I know that.


And why do you know that?


Because that's where I know there'll be Memoire Floué.


Good girl. Now go and find those pamphlets like you came here for, and then leave.


Merlin, you are getting extremely bossy. Do you realise that?


Don't you mean that you're getting extremely bossy?


No, I mean that you are.


But if I'm you, and I'm getting bossy, doesn't that mean you're getting bossy?


......... Just shut up okay? You're confusing me.


Or are you confusing you?


SHUT UP!


"Hello" said the healer that I nearly knocked over while arguing with myself.


"Oh, my, I am so sorry! I wasn't paying attention" I shook my head and looked at her. To my surprise it was Healer Wincher, from my Christmas visit.


"That's fine. Acelynne, right?" she asked and I nodded. "How have you been doing?"


"Fine, I've actually just completed my OWLs. How about you?"


"Same old, same old. Still taking care of Mr. Lockhart, who is still convinced that I'm in love with him. What brings you back here?" She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and put her hands in her cloak.


"I've actually come to take your advice and find some pamphlets on Healer school after graduation" I laughed and she widened her eyes in surprise.


"Well, good on yah! If you come with me I'm sure I'd be able to wrangle a few up" she immediately began to head across the lobby and over to the stairwell. "We have an entire stack of them in the tearoom, I believe. I have to restock the potion storage, so why don't I just give you the grand tour on the way up? I mean, if you have time?"


"Oh, I have all the time in the world" I smiled, thinking of George in the prank shop, waiting for me return and continue playing his stupid little game.


"Brilliant" she said as we reached the landing. "I just have to grab the trolley from the staff lounge on this floor, and then we'll be off!" she gestured for me the wait outside as she opened a door to our left. She came back out a few seconds later with a trolley filled with every type of potion imaginable, each of them labelled and bottled differently.


"Well to start off, this is the staff lounge. There's one on each floor and fireplaces inside so we can floo to any of the other lounges. It has the normal stuff, food, tables, couches, chairs. There are also tiny bedrooms in there with beds so that we can take naps on our breaks, especially if we've been working long shifts.


"So downstairs is not only the receptionist station, but it is also the place to go for Artefact Accidents. This includes cauldrons exploding, wands backfiring, crashing your broomstick and such. The head healer there is Maureen Little and the healer in training is Davis Harrow.


"This floor, the first floor, is the Creature-Induced Injuries floor, but we also have the Dai Llewellyn Ward. Here we treat burns, stings, bites. Wait one second, I just need to stop at the potions storage..." she said and opened the door, taking the trolley with her. "The healer in charge here is Hippocrates Smethwyck, and Augustus Pye is the healer in training. Both great guys, but I would not want to be in their shoes every day. I mean, it's not a pretty site, stitching up someone who's just been ravaged by a hippogriff." She exited the closet and shivered at the mental image before taking me to the elevator.


"Do you have any idea what you want to do as a healer?" she asked as the door opened and we stepped inside.


"Not really. I think I'd like to work with long term patients, nothing too gory, but I don't really know anything about what goes on inside a hospital" I shrugged and leaned against the wall for a brief moment as we rode up a floor.


"Well then it's great that I'm doing this for you then, right?" she laughed and the doors opened wide.


"Now we come to the Magical Bugs and Diseases Floor, where we treat dragon pox, scrofungulus, and vanishing sickness. Anything of that sort really. The healer in charge here is Gladys Hedgepot, and the healer in training is Marcus Lansbury. It gets pretty intense up on this floor too, every once in a while we have to shut it down for quarantine because a bug gets loose. Anyways, here's the next storage room. Again, one second." She grabbed hold of the trolley and tugged it into the little storage room, but not before I could catch the briefest glimpse of cherry red liquid sitting on the bottom shelf of the trolley.


Don't you even think about it, the voice in my head warned sternly.


Don't think about what? I wasn't thinking about anything, I countered quickly and tried to mentally shake the image out of my head.


You're stronger than this, okay? It's just a couple more minutes and then we can get out of here, where you won't be tempted to steal any more potion.


Who's talking about stealing? I'm most certainly not! Have a little faith in me, in us, will you? I'm not tempted to steal anything so get off my back!


"Ready to go?" Healer Wincher stepped out of the closet and closed it firmly behind her.


"For sure. I have a question though" I said, using every ounce of my will power not to look and the bottom wrack of the trolley.


"Shoot."


"Why do you have such little security on your potion store rooms? Don't you worry that someone will just walk on in and take some? A patient, a visitor?" I asked casually as we boarded the elevator and hit the button.


"Great question. Okay, so when patients are admitted to the hospital, they have their wand taken away. It's most for the safety of themselves and the staff, in case they have memory loss and break down. We don't want anyone getting hurt, now do we? The only way to get into the store rooms is with Alohamora, so that takes care of the patients.


"And then with the visitors, most of them are too busy to even think about stealing potions. And, as bad as it may sound, there is a very big underground ring of medical potion brewing and it's not illegal, yet anyways. Why would someone steal a potion and risk getting arrested, when they could just as easily by if off a pedlar? They risk not getting a perfectly made potion, but it beats getting arrested any day" she shrugged and we left the elevator. "I'm pretty sure the lesson here is, don't take potions that aren't meant for you."


"That's for sure" I said, trying to hide my anxiousness about the large bottle of potion on the trolley.


"Now, here we come to the third floor, Plants and Potion poisoning. This takes care of rashes, regurgitation, any nasty side effects of poorly made potions. You'd be surprised by the amount of children we get on this floor, drinking potions that their parents make for Merlin knows why! You would think that as a parent, it would be a responsibility to make sure that all potions are out of a child's reach, but apparently it never crosses their minds" she took a breath and rolled her eyes, nearing the next potion store on our left.


"The healer in charge here is Peregrin Mossworthy, and the healer in training is Heidi Brandybuck. We also have the Robert-Shireton ward, which deal with those who have potion dependency. We have a ninety percent success percentage of getting our patients clean, best in the continent" Healer Wincher said from inside the closet.


"What happens to the other ten percent?" I asked, swallowing thickly.


"They get sent to hard-core rehabilitation centers. If they don't get clean there, then there isn't much hope left, but it all relies on how badly they want it? Some people don't have anything left in their lives but the potion, or because of the potion, and have absolutely nothing to lose. It's horribly depressing, but it happens. Now, to the elevator!" she said and we started back down the corridor.


"So, when we get to the fourth floor I need to stop at the Janus-Thickey Ward for a moment to check up on Gilderoy and the rest of the patients. It will only take a few minutes."


"No problem" I said, keeping my eyes glued to space between the elevator doors to distract myself. I didn't need the potion. I didn't want the potion. I was stronger than the potion.


And I had more to lose than the potion.


"This is the fourth floor" she said when the doors opened after what felt like an eternity. "Spell Damage, where we fix anything from unliftable jinxes, hexes, poorly applied charms and so on. It's also where we keep the long term patients, in the Janus-Thickey ward and that's where I work. Most of the long term patients are the reciprocates of spell's gone wrong, or the victims of," her voice dropped below a whisper, "death eaters. A lot of them are complete out of their head's, but they're all good at heart."


She pulled to a stop at the Janus-Thickey ward and quickly opened the doors. "I'll be gone for only a few minutes, can you watch the cart for me?"


Before I could respond the door had already closed behind her, leaving me alone with my best friend and worst enemy.


Just take a few steps back Ace, create a barrier between yourself and the potion, inner me advised.


But she said to watch the cart! I countered, biting the inside of my cheek.


You can watch it from a few feet away! Now do what you're told, okay?


I did as I was told, stepping away from the cart and leaning against the wall. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and lulled my head back so my face was to the ceiling.


Inhaling the sterile smell, I imagined myself stepped away from the wall and over to the cart. I bent down at the knees, checking in both directions as I reached my hand towards several bottles of potion and shrunk them down. I would then sneak them into my pockets as easily as I would sickles, make sure the coast was clear, and stand right back up again.


"Ready to go, Acelynne?" Healer Wincher came out of the ward and startled me, making my eyes spring back open. I was standing beside the cart again, but I pushed aside my confusion for another time.


"Yep" I said and ran a hand through my hair.


"Then let's get to it! The head healer on this floor is Justice O'Connor, and the head healer in training is Travis Greene." She opened the door to the potions storage and quickly emptied the trolley, coming back out within a matter of minutes with a confused expression on her face.


"Is something the matter?" I asked, stepping back so she would have room to push the trolley.


"It's nothing, someone must have miscounted the bottles again. It happens so often though, I wonder if they should include an arithmetic class at Hogwarts" she laughed loudly and snorted. I couldn't help but join in with her as we boarded the elevator. When we both stopped, we were clutching our sides and wiping our eyes.


"That was fun" she said and adjusted her ponytail. "Finally, we have the fifth floor. This is where visitors can come and buy gifts for the patients. It's also where they can sit down, have tea, and try to relax. Most of our informational pamphlets are stored here as well, which seems like a real inconvenience but whatever."


She wheeled the trolley around the corner to the entrance of the gift shop. Positioned right before the paperback novels and themed teddy bears was a plastic sorter, stuffed to the brim with pamphlets. Healer Wincher plucked several two out for me, entitled 'So you want to be a Healer?' and '1123 Facts you should know about the Magical Medical Field'.


"I hope I've helped" she smiled as she handed them to me with a bright smiled on her young face.


"Oh believe me, you've done much more than I ever could have ask" I smiled back and held out a hand.


"Hope to be working with you one day, Acelynne. Good luck" she shook my hand and turned back to her trolley. "Goodbye!"


"Bye! And thank you!" I shouted before dashing into the nearest elevator before it could close. I flipped the pamphlets around in my hands, reading and re-reading the backs as we sunk down level after level.


We did it!, the voice in my head shouted as we stepped off the elevator and into the lobby. We were in the hospital, directly around the potion we're quitting, and we didn't give in!


I know, I thought in amazement, stepping out the front doors and into the rain. I smiled to myself, proudly, and shoved my hands into my pockets in order to protect the pamphlets front getting soaked.


I froze immediately when I realised that I was placing the pamphlets directly next to several tiny viles that where lining my pocket.