It's not easy to explain, but . . .

Chapter 59

                                        Chapter 59 : I solemnly swear I am up to no-good!

"Healer Treiber?"

"Yes?" Katie Treiber looked up from a patient chart to see a tall Wizard standing in the door to her office.  "May I help you?"  She closed the file and put it on the top of a pile of similar charts.

"Myself, no, but your assistance and expertise is needed most urgently, if you'd come with me please?"

"Certainly, which room are we . . ?"  Katie started to ask.

"The Wizard needing your help is not here at St. Mungo's . . . it's a bit of an emergency, you see," Rabastan started to explain.

"You should be talking to someone in the Emergency Room, then Mister . . . ?"

"Lestrange . . . Rabastan Lestrange at your service," the Wizard answered, with a slight bow.  "And you were asked for, specifically, by name.  Time is of the essence. . . so, if you could gather whatever you might need  . . . there seems to be some blood loss and  . . . "

"Who is hurt?"  Healer Treiber stood up, her training overruling her sense of danger; she already knew the answer, having recognized the Wizard standing before her.

"Headmaster Snape," was the terse reply.

"Don't tell me those two idiots . . "

"No, it wasn't the Carrows," Rabastan assured her, with a smirk.

Katie snorted, shook her head and walked over to a side table to pick up her bag.

"Severus Snape is a miserable excuse," she started, as she shouldered her bag and turned, before she finished her sentence.  "of a patient, but I won't let that stop me from doing my duty."  She looked up to see Rabastan smothering a smile.  "Ah, I see you're acquainted with his sparkling personality!"

"Indeed.   Well, shall we?"

"Of course," answered Katie.

As they proceeded down the hall they encountered Healer Artemus Pye.

"Something wrong, Katie?"  Artemus asked, even as he eyed Rabastan.

"Little 'emergency' house call, Artemus, and as I just got off duty, the timing is perfect . . . I shouldn't be long . . . see you tomorrow," she replied, as they passed, but looking over her shoulder to wave, she flicked her finger on her nose and winked.  Artemus nodded.

"See you tomorrow, then," he called, then hurried to his office to send an owl winging north.

X X X

Rabastan and Katie arrived at the gates of Malfoy Manor and taking her elbow, he walked her quickly down the walkway and into the imposing house.

"This place could use a good Spring cleaning," Katie muttered, as she glanced around.

"Indeed, but the owners are away, so we make do.  In here, Healer Treiber."

Katie stepped through the door opened for her by Rabastan and saw Severus laid out on a sofa, robes shredded and blood dripping onto the floor from a gash in his arm, which was hanging over the side.

" 'Some blood loss'?  You, sir, are a master of the understatement," Katie said, as she strode quickly across the room, 'Accioing' a chair over next to her, on which she set her bag.   Taking her wand, she ran a quick diagnostic over Severus.  Keeping her head lowered, she became aware of other people entering the room.   "Someone has done some preliminary healing of these wounds . . . quite good work, I must say."