The Day After Tomorrow

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

33 - THE SOUND OF SILENCE

THE healer had the nib of a quill pursued at his lips, his eyes dancing as he leaned over the receptionists counter. "And I was just eating my lunch right, and bam, out of nowhere the emergency room's flooded with -," he cast a dubious look about the deserted waiting room before giving Maria, the receptionist a loaded look. "Purebloods."

Maria knew by the way he was buzzing with suppressed excitement that she was meant to have realised something. "So what Andy, what's the big deal, I'm a pureblood, you're a pureblood my mate Patricia down at the deli's a pureblood."

Andrew wanted to shake the witch. He raised his eyebrows once more, casting yet another conspiratorial look about the room to make sure they were alone before leaning further across the counter, his pale uniform crinkling against the wood. "They were brought in from Malfoy Manor."

That made her raise a brow, curious despite herself because everyone knew she loved a little drama. "And?"

He was smirking at her now because he could tell she was interested; his grin was bright against his golden skin. "And they all were from the Sacred Twenty Eight."

Maria snorted despite herself, wiping away the smear of mayonnaise that had slipped from her sandwich onto her notes. "Don't be daft Andrew. That's not even a thing."

"Of course it is Maria." At her incredulous look Andrew continued, his gaze fixed on hers. "Don't you know all the stories are true!" He hadn't believed it himself at first but after a bit of research and a few suspicious conversations with some wizards in the dark alleys of Diagon Alley, he was convinced.

"Please, Andy." She laughed out loud, gesturing at him with her deli sandwich. "Give me one example."

He thought for a beat, coming up immediately with one. "The Deathly Hallows." He was peering at her with an undiluted look of smug satisfaction, watching as she finished the final bite of her lunch, looking thoughtful.

"True." Maria conceded with renewed interest in the Malfoy Manor case. "So how do you know they're all Sacred Twenty Eights?" She wasn't completely clueless about it, she knew they were some kind of elite pureblood only club that had been close to Voldemort, but she had always imagined them to be just a myth passed on to make people's lives interesting.

Andrew rolled his dark eyes at her. "Maria, who else do you think that bunch of old school prestigious pureblood patients are?"

She thought for a moment, glancing down at her list of names. It was true, they all had the names associated with the Dark side, names that had been pasted on headlines ever since Voldemort's fall. "Another attack?" She asked, her body going cold because she'd been scared of the faces behind the names, and now she was half afraid and half gratified for whoever had managed to hospitalise them all.

And all humour was erased from Andrew's face because as much as he liked drama, he didn't like pain. That's why he had become a healer after the war, he'd seen enough pain to last him a lifetime so had decided to in his own way to try and alleviate a bit of it. "Yeah."

Maria scrubbed an arm across her face, wiping away the crumbs, suddenly serious. "Any casualties?"

She saw him nod, just once and his dark hair fell across his eyes but she could tell from the way he'd withdrawn from the counter that there had been many.

Before she could reach a dark hand across the counter to send a pulse of comfort through him like they'd done every time the job got a little tough, there was a thundering of feet across the hall, a flurry of untidy brown curls, a figure clad in the dark material of auror gear.