Visiting Hours

Danny walked into St. Mungos, familiar with the smell of the place. He had only ever been in here once, and that was after his duel with the dark lord. Not exactly a fond memory of this place, seeing as how he tried to punch Darren right afterwords. Wait. Was that Darren? He forgot, but it still was a haunting memory. Yet he wanted to visit someone today, an old friend of his.

He walked towards the reception area and approached the lady. "Hi!" she said in a perky attitude "Do you have an illness?" "Uhh, no. I'm just here to visit someone." Danny replied with a smile. "Do they have an illness?" "What? No, I'm here to visit someone who works here." "Oh! Okay! Who do you want to visit?" "Mari." "Mari who?" Danny placed his palm onto his face. "Mariana Esmerald Diggory." "I'm sorry, I don't know who that is." "Forget it! I'll find her myself!" "Have a nice day!" He was about to say something explicit, but he held himself back. Damn newcomers.

With his irritation subsiding, he began to wander the halls of the hospital. Every so often, he was look into a room and see people who were...green? They seemed to be sectioned off into different areas, so whatever they had must've been pretty infectious. He wondered what they had, he never saw anything like it. Shrugging his shoulders at the thought, he continued throughout the halls, getting lost in the process.

Jesus, how does anyone navigate this place? he thought to himself No maps or nothing! Losing his will to continue his search, he approached the nearest bench and sat down. Obviously they trained the wizards and witches here carefully, he wouldn't be surprised if a person got lost in here and the others found them ten years later. The place was enormous.

It was extremly hot outside though Mariana barely noticed the hotness nowdays. She was either too occupied with patients or too tired to feel anything apart from the aproaching bed. Too many Hogwarts students were sick from the desease that consumed everyone, even Sophia had to take it easy nowdays, it was too advanced. During the summer, she was working here and the new term terrified her. If somebody asked her she would probably close the school for the time being.

The footsteps she heard were not uncommon while she was in the hall. People left and came every second of the day and she was two halls to the right visiting the patients who were counting their last breaths. She was passing through the hall that cut the waiting room where Danny sat in half. She almost whistled by without noticing one of her friends sitting there.

Maybe it was the cough her constant companion that made her distracted. Just before she was about to take a turn to the left she noticed something or rather someone familiar. She froze in place while her eyes adjusted to the newcomer while she stared incredulous some 3 feet away from her. If she was holding something she would probably have dropped it. "Danny?" she said insecure while she turned around in his direction making sure her eyes were not cheating on her. How long did it pass since she last saw him? A year, 6 months she forgot.

Deep in his own thought, Danny barely heard Mari call out his name, it was almost faint to his ears. Turning his head to the sound of her voice though, he saw he standing there at the end of the hallway. Danny smiled warmly and stood up. He walked towards her and quickly gave her a hug, and a slight laugh. "Good to see you again Mari!" he said, his smile wide "It's been a long time...two, three years?" Even though he himself had said it so many times before, it still sent a chill down his spine. Two more years flew by and to think it had been so long when it really hadn't.

"How've you been?" he quickly asked, hoping to get rid of some memories in his head. He couldn't even remember the last time he saw her, but hopefully it was a good time. So many things rattled in his head though at the moment, he probably wouldn't even remember to tie his own shoes later on today.

It was evident that she caught him from somewhere far away though he did get up and aproach all too willingly. The hug was nice and Mariana still looked in disbelief. Good lord, but she was really hugging Danny again. Her satisfied face quickly turned to fury. "You dissappear for years and all I get is "it's good to see you again"" she spit out though somehow she couldn't make her voice sound angry enough.

"Do you care to explain where have you been young man?" she asked sounding a little whinny even to herself. It was hard to be angry at Danny, but her worry for him for the past years somehow made it last. She beat up her need to hug him again and make sure he is real. Did Andy know he was back? Did he hear about Soph? Too many questions at once. She beat them back while she waited for his reaction. She almost expected him to turn around and walk away in big haste. She analyzed which measurements she would take to stop him, but hoped they wouldn't be necessary for her to use so she just stood there with her arms crossed and expectant eyes.

Danny took a step back away from Mari, obviously noticing her immediate anger. It wasn't surprised that she was irritated, perhaps even pissed that he randomly showed up out of nowhere, and he couldn't blame her. He had been listed dead for two years after all, but did she really have to add the 'young man' part in there? They were practically the same age after all. Wait...were they? It had been so long that he completely forgot. He would have to do a lot of catching up once she stopped being pissed at him.

"I was in America," he answered plainly, shrugging his shoulders up and down.

It really wasn't that simple, but that's just how he saw the situation at least. In order to avoid another question, he sighed and said "I don't know if Andrew told you anything, but I've been listed dead for two years because some aurors tried to kill me. So I layed low for a while, waiting for a time to come back." Even though he made it sound like he had a solid plan, he really didn't. He really just didn't want to return until he had his life straightened out.

((OOC: A little drama doesn't hurt ))

Mariana stared at him speechless while he didn't finish with why was he in america. Her look did soften up a bit, but her voice still kept its level. "Andrew told me that you were dead. Good lord we were on holiday together for a week and he didn't have decency to tell me what was going on." she replied surprised that her anger just turned from Danny to his brother. Did she just say together out loud? Oh Danny was so going to think they have an affair or something which is excatly what she needs right now.

The new wave of cough interupted her in the middle of her speech and the worst one yet. She could feel the sharp pain in her chest, probably in her lungs, but she managed to stop quickly. It helped when she concetrated on something else. "Why didn't you look for protection in the order? We were all there we could have helped you. And why didn't you try to let us know you were fine? We were all worried about you, but no one knew where to look." she sipped another set of questions. There had to be a better explanation than that.

(Eh, drama is okay in the right circumstances xD)

He shrugged with his hands. "I'm not even sure as to where....wait a minute, you two went on holiday together?" immediately raising a brow on her explanation. Well...it's not like that creeped him out or anything, but he was a bit surprised. He'd have to pat Andrew on the back later on...once he found him of course. He shook the thought off his mind, most of his body telling him to laugh right now. He didn't let himself laugh though, that would just be rude...and probably piss Mariana off even more.

"You know I work better on my own," he said crossing his arms "I didn't want to risk the secrets of the Order coming out or anything like that...not entirely sure if the faction is what I'd call 'secret' anymore." He looked towards the ground for a second, in thought, and looked back up at Mari. "I didn't want to be found," was all he said, his gaze just as normal and as calm as having a normal conversation. A hard decision, yes, but he knew he had to make the tough choices for himself. "The time gave me time to grow up and time to move along from my own selfishness, ironically, the choice I made being a selfish one."

His tone when he heard about the holiday was not particulary apeasing. Why in the world did she mention this right away? Well probably because she was caught off guard and didn't take care of what or how she was saying. "Egypt, I went with him and another guy to see the pyramids didn't he tell you that?" she asked and her anger lowering without a thought as she looked confused. Good lord how didn't he know all this?

Mariana was fighting her urge to laugh, she knew she would loose sooner rather then later so a wide smile spread across her face. "That's the lamest exuce i've ever heard I suggest you work on it." she rolled her eyes at him, but didn't look mad anymore. "Why did you come back? I mean don't get me wrong i'm glad you did, but if there's still a price on your head.." she asked mumbling in between, but he probably caught the point. She stopped in the middle of the sentence when she just realized only possible reason that could drag him to the open. "Did you hear about Sophia?" she asked forcing her voice to stay even.

Danny immediately relaxed for a second once she gave her explanation. That made some sense...but "Wait, just you and another guy?" he asked in an almost concerned look. Mari was like his sister, he couldn't help but immediately take notice of that situation. All in all, he felt like he was completely blowing it out of proportion, but hey, he was Danny after all. He rubbed his face for a second and sighed. "Know what? Never mind, I'll figure this out later." He didn't need to think about that kind of stuff.

He felt a little irritated by her response. "Look," he said in a casual voice "that's the truth. You don't have to believe me, but I know what I did." In hindsight, it did sound pretty ridiculous, yet he didn't have time to fabricate a reason to cover up the ridiculous truth. He was just glad to be back. "And what's that about a price on my head?" he asked with a brow raised. He'd understand if it was the ministry who had put it on his head, but he had managed to get back into the wizarding world without even trying to hide...were they waiting for something then?

He nodded in response towards her question about Sophia, Danny rubbing the back of his head out of awkwardness. "Yeah, she explained the situation to me and ended up...changing right there. I had to uhh...throw a table at her." Boy, he was pretty sure he couldn't have made that sound any worse than it had came out.

Why in the world did she ever have to mention that topic? Maybe she considered he would have talked to his brother about it. Nevertheless, the situation couldn't get any more uncomftable for her. Whatever his suppositions were, was way out of line and not something she could really blame him for since the story did sound dirty. "Whatever it is you're thinking right now Danny is not true. It was just a holiday nothing happened between me and your little brother i could never..." she finally said feeling the whole awkwardness of the situation.

"Look let's just enter in this empty office and talk like people." she said opening the door on her right. The healer in question was one of the many deseased that made it to the bed. "I'm just assuming that you left because death eaters put a price on your head if you had to go and hide. I don't know anything that you didn't tell me. Is there something i should know that i don't?" she asked giving him a suspicious look. What did he think she meant by that.

Mariana stared at his last words incredulously. Throwing tables, changing.. "That's weird last time i saw Sophia she was in no shape to even get out of bed. Are you sure that she attacked you?" she asked confused. Her memory was good on that particular moment where Andrian ran into the hospital with Sophia's limp body in his hands. One of them had to be hallucinating.