It was one of those days. Y’know? One of those days when you lose your favourite patients to their ailments. One of those days when you got back the test results and you have to tell someone that nothing about it was like what you thought it was. It was all just wrong. We were wrong. You were wrong. I was wrong. One of those days...
Helene Delacour put down the fountain pen she held between her fingers in the fold between the pages of her diary. She fingered the bottomed of the frayed piece of scarlet silk that kept her page and she sighed, lifting her eyes before reaching forward to curl her long fingers around the hand-painted porcelain teacup she’d been given in the place of the ornamentation-devoid mugs bought in bulk at that home ware store all of the Muggles loved; was it called Ike? Iker? Ikeable? Ikea? Something like that. Did it really matter in the end? No, probably not.
Bringing the cup to her lips, Helene sat back in the chair that she’d made her own since frequenting the bistro when she first arrived in England. Originally she’d found it stiff and uncomfortable but she supposed her posture had suffered in striving to find comfort. She’d taken the table in the far corner at the front of the restaurant and she sat with her back to the wall, watching through the windows as the world ferried by through Diagon Alley; everyone: mothers and their children, businessmen, shady characters, even shadier characters fresh from Knockturn Alley – the world travelled through there.
Usually, the happiness and beauty she saw through the windows made all the difference. Today, she doubted anyone could.
With a heavy sigh, Helene put the teacup back down at the table and eyed the croissant that she’d been given with it. It had raspberry jam through the middle, she knew. It was her favourite way to have it. The thought of eating it now though ... it just made her stomach want to lurch.
Biting down on her lower lip, Helene cast her eyes back to her leather-bound diary laid out in front of her. She half wanted to turn back the pages and search for any random anecdotes from the hospital, about her patients. Maybe the foreshadowing was there, plain as day, in her delicate script. That would have been the irony of it. It was there, she was sure now in her cynical hindsight. She didn’t look now. To look would mean she’d actually made mistakes. She’d been assured the counter – that it was fate. Helene was not so sure.
Clawing her fingers through her hair, the Healer reached down into her bag for a bottle of pills. She looked at the label briefly, looking only for the dosage amount, before popping out two bright pink pills. She swallowed them dry; something she’d learnt to suffer having to do upon finding herself wanton during the night but without water. Shaking her shoulders a little, Helene dropped the bottle back in and sat back in the chair, lifting one leg onto the base of it and hugging it tight to her chest, allowing herself a minute of reflection.
Where would she go from here, she wondered, how would she go on from here?
by Alice Rousseau Fri Apr 12, 2013 11:00 pm
