Healing the Healer

Robert could almost hear Kate now. "THIS is why you do not need a whole roomful of muggle guns!..." It wasn't that she was against a gun or two, but she never had liked his excessive collection of them. He had just added to it by adding a rare French flintlock to the collection. He liked flintlocks because of the heft they had. He'd seen that the darned thing was still loaded. He had wanted to clean it before handling it much more, but the thing had fired instead. He believed he had been lucky because he still had all his finger attached, and he believed more of the damage had actually come from the kickback. His hand--his good hand--was bleeding, and he suspected he'd broken some of the metacarpals. Buggar. And on top of that, it hurt like a sonofa...never mind. He couldn't tell if the heat had added some burns to it, but that wouldn't have surprised him.

It had been a bloody stupid thing, and he had always prided himself on knowing better. He had been alone at the farmhouse, and even if he had gone back to Khaat's, she was not home and neither was Brian. He did not want to lose the use of his hand because he did not want to lose the ability to practice some of the more delicate kinds of healing and potion making that he enjoyed.

That had left Robert one reasonable solution--go to St Mungo's. Great--he sighed. He did not relish people seeing the oh-so-human results of doing oh-so-human stupid things. He realized that he had a certain reputation, and when people caught him when he was not polished and poised, it generally became a major piece of gossip that he disliked immensely.

He rethought the plan and attempted to do some cleaning of his hand, and that had not helped whatsoever. It was only making the whole mess look more gruesome than it needed to be. His attempt at mixing a quick healing potion had been flawed because he had chosen a formula that needed overly meticulous measurements, and without the deftness that both hands afforded him, he'd buggared the potion and turned some of the skin a rather humiliating shade of purple.

He was sure it could have been worse, but it was of little comfort. He had rifled through the shelves of his home potions lab and found nothing to repair anything. Besides that, he was running out of time. Kate was due home any moment, and the last thing he wanted to hear was her reprimanding him for his collection one more time. He snatched up a clean towel and wrapped it around his hand and drew his wand and ported to St. Mungos.

Luckily, he was here so often, no one appeared to pay much of any attention to him anymore, injury or not. In a way, that was also frustrating. He had hoped that his staff would be more observant, but that didn't appear to be happening today.

"Where is everyone?" he asked one of the nurses at the emergency desk.

"Short staffed, Mr. Lupin," she replied, overwhelmed and preoccupied.

"Wonderful," he rolled his eyes. Robert decided to merely lean back against a hallway wall and see how long it took before he saw someone who looked relatively watchful of what was happening in the emergency unit. He glanced up at the clock, mentally marking the time. This was a test, and he was not willing to take any wager on who might pass it.

@Apollo Zabini

Apollo couldn't find the healer he was assigned to. A blatant expression of confusion was pulling at his face as he wandered the halls. Well, maybe not wandered so much as strode. He moved with purpose even as his eyes tried to scan every name tag.

It had taken a single meeting with the headmaster to put Apollo's plan in motion. Needless to say, the professors knew what was going on. Of course they did. So, inevitably, Hayes knew the sort of torment that Apollo had been dealing with - some of it self-inflicted. Okay, a lot of it self-inflicted. But there was no denying that his classmates made it worse.

So when the Slytherin came in requesting leave to return to his apprenticeship at St. Mungo's, Keiran knew exactly who to contact. Of course, Apollo never planned on actually running into the Minister of Magic himself. Even if his headmaster did sort of know him.

That said, when Apollo turned a corner, he clutched his books tighter to his chest. Where on earth was she? Merlin help him if he had his apprenticeship cancelled because the woman was invisible or had decided not to show up today. It wouldn't do him in now, as it might have before, but he needed to focus on himself and what he needed. Just as Lily had told him to.

This wasn't something he could write off as 'one of those things' that went badly and was dropped. His world came together when he was focusing on what he knew would one day be his craft. He had to find her.

Picking up the pace again, he forced back a noise of frustration, trying to level out his features. Of course, when he came around the next corner, he stopped short. Oh, no. He really did not need to get in trouble with Robert Lupin, of all people. That would get back to Keiran, who would wonder why in the world he had ever helped Apollo in the first place.

Clearing his throat, he forced himself to move forward more slowly, glancing down. As his gaze slid towards the floor, something stopped it. Was Lupin -- hurt? What was that on his hand? And why wasn't he saying anything about it? Apollo severely doubted this was the same case as his accident from the previous week, but his hand subconsciously reached up to grip the charm hidden beneath his robes. Just for a moment. He couldn't even see if anything happened to it afterwards, but he dropped his hand as he approached the minister a bit cautiously.

Clearing his throat quietly, Apollo tried not to look unsteady. "Hello, Minister. Professor Hayes told me that he contacted you about my apprenticeship. I- I'm Apollo." So much for sounding confident. Oh well. He gestured vaguely towards Lupin's hand. "Sorry, but.. are you alright?"

He heard someone speaking to him. Whoever it was got extra points straight off for being alert. He looked and saw young Zabini, one of the apprentices. Good. An eager young mind was always refreshing, especially when compared to the jaded old ones in the ER staff who were more than a bit lackluster today. And, Zabini noticed the towel over his hand. Double points for the lad, and minus points for the staff.

"Ah, Zabini," he said, pleased with him already. "Yes. I did speak to your headmaster. I was glad to do it." He frowned for a moment. "You seem to be without your mentor today. Seems to be a lot of that here for some reason., and you seem to be the only one here who passed the test. That's good for you, not so fortunate for them." He rolled his eyes in slight sarcasm towards the ER staff. He looked at the clock and then back at Zabini.

"Ashamed as I am to admit it, I could use a bandaid," he said. He did not know how polished Zabini's skills were, but he felt that they could wander through it together. The stickiest point might be making up the potion to rid himself of the stupid purple stain over the wound on his hand. If there were not a bottle of the potion already prepared on the hospital potions lab shelves, then young Zabini might be called upon to brew the complex and advanced counter remedy to Robert's own bungled curative. It was not a student level potion, so Robert estimated he might have to talk Zabini through it if it came to it.

Well, Robert realized he'd presumed that Zabini was able to deal with the sight of blood and fractures and burns and just a general chaotic mess. Still, all in all, a flustered apprentice was less problematic than an annoyed wife, even if Zabini were not entirely equipped for what he was about to see, he was still preferable to what he would receive from Kate. She would not be flustered by the gore. She would be chin up about it, but she'd also be quite irked, he was positive.

He opened the door of the treatment room next to him and looked inside. It was vacant. Good. He motioned to Zabini to follow.

"Come with me. You can practice your skills on me," he gave him a bit of a relaxed smile. Relaxed was hard for him to muster at the moment, given that the pain he was feeling was quite unrelenting and felt like it was mounting. He very much feared he would have to give in to a pain potion soon as much has he did not want to. He knew they were necessary but, for himself, he did not like them, and he usually preferred to do without. In this case, it would set a poor example for the apprentice, so he resolved he would need to be a bit less of the prickish patient and more of the approachable mentor.

"This is not pretty, Zabini. I hope you're not squeamish," he said.

Apollo did have to admit - it was weird how helpful the Lupins were being for him lately. First Teddy and now Robert. Not that it was bothersome or anything, of course. Apollo was grateful. He just couldn't dismiss the irony of it all.

That is, until Robert went on. He wasn't even exactly sure what the Minister meant, and supposed that it had to be some Muggle thing his parents would turn their noses up about, but he did register that it wasn't a good thing. So the Minister was not alright. Brilliant..

And, indeed, Apollo was not about to get off lightly, it seemed. His mouth opened a bit as he came to understand what was being demanded of him, but although the teen faltered, he wasn't now about to back down. Either he would find a way to fix this or he would find someone who could. Losing his cool on the first day would not only ruin his confidence but also his chances for success. Lifting his chin subconsciously, Apollo followed the Minister into the treatment room as requested.

He first set his books down, supposing that it would be something they could use ready-made potions for. It had been decided, of course, that if he were to learn and practice, he would be granted the ability to use magic within the walls of St. Mungos as he was at Hogwarts, though obviously within reason. So he left his wand in the pocket of his robes for the time being, instead turning to look at Lupin.

"No, sir. I'm not." He shook his head almost sadly. "I've seen a lot in the past few years."

And indeed he had. Apollo wore his own set of scars across his chest, as if to prove his point. But there was no point in talking about that, or Christian's accident, or any of those things. They needed to tend to whatever was wrong. So Apollo stepped forward carefully, reaching out to gently lift the towel away.

He was shocked, certainly, and his stomach clenched when he saw how bad it was. 'Mangled' might have been a near appropriate description. But he just flattened his lips into a line and set his jaw, determined to work as he was meant to.

"What caused this?" He asked, trying to sound more confident than he really felt.

Stepping back, he pulled open cabinets as he tried to find the one that held the potions. "I imagine you're in a lot of pain, Minister, but is there still any feeling in the hand? You can still use it to some extent?" The last thing they needed was for Lupin to need some kind of nerve rebuilding. Apollo hadn't the faintest clue where to begin if that were the case, and even with his books on hand, how absurd would he appear if he had to flip through pages and pages for some sort of idea.

He was only sixteen. No way was he qualified or prepared enough for something like this.

"Muggle handgun," Robert said, as a means of explanation. "I rather like all sorts of weaponry--magic and otherwise. I was trying to disassemble an antique flintlock pistol when it went off in my hand. Could still be some old lead ball ammunition in the wound for all I know, and that will need to come out if its in there because those old lead balls are toxic.

"I have enough feeling in it to know it hurts like hell, to be honest. It doesn't move. I've tried. Can't entirely help you with a precise diagnosis because my best healing skills are by touch. We energy workers can't diagnose or heal ourselves. Our magic doesn't work that way. Has to do with the fact that an energy worker uses his own body and magical energies to interact with another's. If the worker's energies are already compromised, it only creates a type of a short circuit when we try to redirect damaged energies back upon ourselves, like a wonky wand. I can give you some calculated guesses and spells and some potions knowledge, but the skills and the magic will have to be yours."

He flicked his finger towards the potions cabinet, opening it with nonverbal magic and then used his finger to slide the bottles back and forth on the shelf, hoping that there was a useful potion to get rid of the disgraceful purple tinge.

"Buggar. I didn't think there would be any here," he sighed. Zabini would likely not do handsprings about doing a restricted level potion. Hayes might not be either, unless Zabini succeeded, in which case, Robert figured he and Zabini might both skate away from this one unscathed by Hayes because of the feather Zabini might earn for his proverbial cap by being such a promising healer's apprentice. And, if that did turn out to be the case, Robert decided he might swipe Zabini from under the roster of his current mentor and train Zabini himself.

"That is likely where the bizarre purple bits come from," he told Zabini. "You know how all those potions books lecture about how important it is not to guess when you measure for potions? There's a reason for that, and if you look at any of those wonderful potions books in the restricted section of the library, you'll find that they stress being meticulous even more. This purple horsecrap is one of the lesser things that can happen when you blow off all those reminders about those restricted level concoctions. I've actually done worse things, but I don't have the movement in my good hand to make those overly anal concoctions, and that is what the counter remedy requires. When we get through here, we might need to go down to the hospital potions lab and see what we can muster." He was relatively sure that apprentices did not generally get access anywhere near the potions lab, so he guessed that Zabini might not have been there either. He was not going to be surprised if the idea would not be intimidating, and it that were the case the enormous lab would be even more unsettling.

Apollo was good at Potions. Great, actually. Nearly brilliant, aside from his tendency to get distracted by the other students and his almost obsessive need to make sure he completed the steps as expected. Things sometimes took him longer than the others, but he almost never messed anything up. When the Minister didn't find the one he wanted, though, a fear more palpable than ever before settled in his gut. If the potion wasn't already made and ready to go, it surely had to be unusual? Apollo didn't know.

He also knew next to nothing about the sort of healing that Robert apparently relied on, but Apollo couldn't help but be fascinated by it. A subject for another time, that one.

For the time being, he focused on what he knew he could control. The poison theoretically lodged beneath the skin. One hand flipped open his book while the other reached into another cabinet, hurriedly gathering the ingredients he needed while he tried to thumb to the right page. Frustration set in, though, when he couldn't find the right page. They'd made this last week. Apollo knew it. He was sure that he did. So he shoved the book away and started crafting a poultice that would draw out the toxins. For once, he would try to do his work by the seat of his pants, as he so often acted around classmates. He hoped this time would actually lead to a positive outcome.

As he worked, he listened to the Minister before pausing, swallowing and then continuing on. "Well, maybe we can get this to work while we go down there. This should pull out the lead, I'm pretty sure. It works with most poisons and such, so it's worth a shot. And it should produce results by the time we get to wherever the lab might be, so if it doesn't I can.. try something else."

Apollo was already planning on digging through his books as they walked to the lab in question, to find something effective on minerals or other solid debris. If this one didn't work like he thought it would, anyway.

"Do people like me often get access to labs or asked to save the Minister of Magic's hand?" Apollo asked, nearly conversationally but mostly to keep Lupin talking while he worked.

Soon enough, he was looking for a clean bandage after the herbs had been crushed and mixed as they were meant to be. And as he spread the substance over one side of the cloth, Apollo turned back, holding it open towards Robert.

Robert laughed when Apollo asked him if people got to heal him often.

"Not as often as my wife would like," Robert replied to him. "She would prefer I either drop some of my hazardous hobbies or take my own medical care more seriously. She gets a bit bothered by the guns, the dueling, and some of the other bits I can get sucked up into....But I can only play chess so long. Maybe its a Lupin thing. My brother was much the same way."

He hadn't actually paid much attention while Zabini made the poultice. He'd actually been looking at the wound, hoping to see one of those lead balls, more out of an analytical healer's curiosity rather than any anxiety about it. He didn't see any bone bits but it did not mean much. He would need to defer to the apprentice in this, and he doubted he was as anxious about it as Zabini was.

He looked at the poultice when Zabini completed it. "Excellent," Robert said, approving. "Nicely done. Be glad you aren't a muggle healer. Their medicine is barbaric. You know what they'd be doing with this? Just blindly fishing about in there with a pair of tweezers til either they find something or until they've done it long enough that they decide there must not be anything in there. Its painful and obscenely messy. And then it takes longer to heal because of the butchery they've done. No wonder they don't live as long as wizards. If you'd have been a muggle healer, I'd have most likely never moved my hand again."


"So tell me about yourself, Zabini. What motivated you to have an interest in healing?" he asked.

He was stepping forward to apply the poultice when Robert's words took him by surprise. Not the compliment, as Apollo felt sure he'd done it right after a moment or two to calm down. But the bit about Muggles. Blinking, he frowned as he carefully wrapped the bandage around the injured hand.

"They suffer like that and yet we don't help them?" An odd question for the son of Blaise and Daphne Zabini, perhaps, but it couldn't be helped. It made him feel sick. "Why don't healers from our world fix Muggles and then just.. alter their memories so they don't remember the truth? I know it's dangerous to tell them about our world. I've heard the horror stories. But refusing to help them seems just as cruel as making them into a scary bedtime story or telling kids like me that Muggles are worthless. Sure, they don't trust us either but that's besides the point when we could save them but we don't."

He turned away, gathering his books. The question was a valid one, of course. He supposed all students in this area were asked the same thing. His answer was complicated in some ways but obvious in others, Apollo felt.

"My brother," he said as he opened the door. Once the Minister stepped through to lead the way to wherever the lab was, Apollo trailed behind. "My parents expect a lot from me, but none of it makes sense. I don't want to run a business or control family finances. I don't want to marry whoever they deem appropriate, either, but that's a ways off regardless. I figured I just had to deal with it, since that's how our family works. But then my brother - my twin, though younger by about half an hour - had a huge accident during a school quidditch match. I didn't think he'd be able to walk again. So I've directed some of our business's funds at quidditch safety, but I didn't want anybody else to have that fear. And I know I can't prevent it, but I can stop it."

"Good question," Robert said, going out the treatment room door. "We'll take the lift." He headed there and pressed the button. "Some of us have ventured into the muggle world for that purpose, from time to time. For the most part that has become insanely difficult now, for a number of reasons." When the lift arrived, Robert stepped in and waited. When the door closed, he pressed the button for the subbasement. "There was a time when we helped more than we do now. What has made it difficult is muggle security systems.They're everywhere and they depend on electronics and clocks that record every bloody second. Before, we could go in, help, erase memories and pop out again. Now we need to tinker with computers that are all linked together across the entire muggle world. It causes even more problems when we start to erase bits of it."

The elevator arrived at the sub basement, and Robert stepped out, heading down the hallway.

"There are times when we still do that, but, at least where I'm concerned, those things happen within the confines of the fragile link between our world with those few muggles that are aware of us and yet keep our secrets."

He stopped for a moment outside the large heavy door to the potions lab that was secured with many enchantments. The potions makers had the ability to bypass those with their magical permissions, but the systems were designed to make it nigh onto impossible for others to enter.

"On the other hand, though, consider that most muggles understand what they deal with is completely normal for them. They do not have, within their base of understanding, any idea that there is any other way. For us to interrupt their world, alter their way of life with our magic, destroys their entire reality and it makes them dependent on us. Muggles believe magic does not exist. For us to come in and do magic, at some point, there would be a buggaring up of the whole business and our slip up would destroy the foundation of what Muggles believe to be infallible science, and it would assuredly turn their civilization upside down.

"On a darker level, that would make our lives constantly in danger because that would also make us a massive threat. There are a lot more muggles than there are of us. We would be viciously hunted and, if they found any of us, killed. And, there is no telling how many of their own kind would be killed because they were believed to be wizards Look up the Salem witch trials for an example from muggles' own history of precisely when that happened. There are instances now of dark things that still happen when opportunistic wizards want to capitalize on their magic abilities by taking advantage of muggles." He was not going to tell Zabini until or unless he knew the young man much better of just how dark and dangerous that side of wizardry could become. It was insidious, and it was not anywhere that Zabini needed to go today.

He opened the door with nonverbal magic, and the door swung open slowly. Snapping his fingers to light the lamps inside, he motioned Zabini in behind him, and he headed down the stairs to the work floor. The space had been enlarged countless times over the years, and now work floor went down yet another level. The stores of prepared hospital potions lined three of the walls from the floor to the ceiling. The wall at the back of the room was filled with potions ingredients and equipment. The main floor was short bookcases with potions books and a large worktable for potions making, with several wooden stools for long hours of work. There were two large cauldrons for large batches, but most others were made in standard sized cauldrons. Some smaller potions were in process at a slow steady simmer because they took several days to temper. The lab was never completely out of use, or at least it hadn't been so long as Robert had had access here.

"A book will help," he said. He drew out a well used pocket sized potions book that he kept in a drawer. It held the formulas of some frequently used potions and their counter potions. He flipped through some of the pages until he came to the potion he had bungled. Going one page further, he came to the counter potion.

"Would you mind helping to gather the ingredients? They're organized on the walls alphabetically," he said. "I'll get a cauldron on to boil and then I'll help you." He listened to what Zabini said about his motives. "Excellent reasoning," he said. "I might have made the same choices if I had been in your shoes, but that surely was difficult for you to go against your family's wishes. I must say I agree that there needs to be more done to insure the safety of quidditch players. Is your brother well now?"

He was listening, but he was also spurred to inspiration by the young man. Zabini had an excellent point and some excellent ideas that were well worth pursuing. Robert was starting to be glad that Hayes had sent the lad back to his apprenticeship.

"You might be onto something quite promising indeed, Zabini. You gave me a couple of ideas already, but we might need to put those off momentarily. It might well be worth some experimentation if you're interested. Remind me if I forget. First things first, though, shall we?"

The Minister was obviously right. He had to be, given his place in the world and how long he had been trusted to keep it. Apollo didn't know how that appointment worked, to be fair, but that wasn't the important thing. Lupin had to know what he was talking about, because if he was wrong, Apollo wouldn't forgive himself for taking it as the truth. For deciding that Robert knew best and that he wouldn't interfere with Muggle healers despite his sudden urge to do so.

Where on earth had that kindness even come from? It couldn't have been genetic, and yet his brother shared the same trait. Go figure.

The computer thing was completely foreign to the Slytherin, aside from the few things he had heard in their Muggle Studies course. But he just let his eyebrows pull together as they took to the lift, a shake of his head the only indication of his distaste for the whole thing. He tempered it all with a sigh and a slow nod. "I guess that makes sense." Of course, that didn't mean he liked it.

Inside the lab, Apollo was almost taken aback. It was massive and utterly surprising - in a great way. It was kind of fantastic. Now, this. This was a place he could enjoy spending his time. If anyone had a lab like this to themselves, he wanted to meet them. That sort of person had to know a great deal, and he would have given a great deal to train with them. But working on his apprenticeship here was nothing if not a good start. So he looked at the list, picking a few to begin with so he could confidently carry them over while Lupin started up a cauldron.

But the Minister wanted to know more about Christian. And while Apollo didn't feel comfortable talking himself up or waiting for praise, he felt certain enough in his thoughts about his brother that it was easy to talk.

"He's doing fine. It's been a couple years now, so he's more or less back to normal. Can't go near the pitch, but I guess that makes sense. The main thing is that our store is the Quidditch shop in Diagon Alley. And since I've been working on this, he's in charge of the store. I think he's getting used to it, though."

But then the Minister spoke again and Apollo turned sharply over his shoulder, blinking at the older man. He was... right? He was doing something right? Apollo hadn't heard that in years. Not in regards to himself, anyway. He supposed Lily might disagree with that here and there, but on a grand scale, this was.. different. Amazing, in fact.

Subconsciously, he stood a little taller, his shoulders relaxing as he turned back to the R's, looking for a root that they needed.

"I'm glad that you think so, sir."

But he agreed; they needed to get to work fixing his hand. So he collected the last ingredient before returning, setting them down amongst their little collection of supplies. The cauldron was heating up, so Apollo looked at the recipe again and got to work. He worked quickly, but almost obsessively carefully. So, the usual basically. Except now the Minister's health was weighing on his shoulders as well.