Words Get In The Way [Arthur]

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Constance came into work early that morning, around 5:30am. Her shift didn't start until seven, but she couldn't sleep any longer because there was a certain patient on her mind. A girl, about fifteen years old, had been admitted a few days ago, with a bad mix of curses that didn't end well. They couldn't get a word out of the girl, because she was unconscious. The person who had brought her in said they had found her that way near the London bridge hidden behind some bushes. They weren't even sure if she was a witch or wizard, but the woman who found her was and brought her straight to Saint Mungos. It was clear that the girl had been cursed several times with different kinds of curses. Now, a few days later, Constance had a bad feeling about the girls recovery.

Constance headed straight to the girls room and started doing check ups. Her vitals were low, her wounds weren't healing quickly enough and the girl was as pale as the files on Constances clipboard. Constance sighed and left the room, attending to some other patients. Only minutes had past when the other healers  on staff starting running down the halls, "Dr. Kase, quick! She's crashing," one of them grabbed Constances arm and pulled her in the direction of the young girls room. Lights flashed as preventative spells were cast, healing potions were injected with syringes and even classic Muggle CPR chest pumps where being used. After what seemed like an eternity, it was clear the girl had flat-lined.

"Time of death, five-forty-five a.m." Constance sighed as she returned her wand to her pocket and left the room. She felt tears start to well up in her eyes. For being a doctor, she didn't handle losing a patient well. Especially one so young. She nodded at a few other orderlies as they past by and they patted her back reassuringly. Constance quickly composed herself and straightened her white coat, making her way down the hall to the BLOOD lab. She leaned up against the counter with her head in her hands until someone came up to her. "Morning, Dr. Kase. How can I help you?" they asked. Constance lifted her head and faked a smile, "Morning, I was wondering if there is any news on the bloodline of the girl in room 215?" Constance asked. The blood worker left for a moment and brought a file back., "looks like this is what we came up with." Constance thanked the worker and took the file.

She wasn't sure she wanted to open it quite yet, but she made her way down to the cafeteria for some morning coffee. She set the file in front of her on the table and kept it closed, for now. The coffee helped calm her heart, but didn't make her feel that much better. Her bad feeling this morning had been correct, as they almost always are.


Notes: Not actually sure what Wizarding Doctors wear, but she moonlights in Muggle clinics so she'd wear the white coat anyway.

Timeline:  This thread is set about a week before Constance looses her memory.

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A few days ago, Arthur had gotten a tip from one of his associates working in St. Mungos. "Another victim!" the rumour had spread quickly. Arthur didn't jump to conclusions, he felt further investigation was needed. Nobody knew who the girl was, or where she came from, but she didn't appear out of thin air, that's for sure. And with all these deaths and disappearances, Arthur didn't want to chalk it up to happenstance. He wanted to go there sooner. But they told him the girl was still in critical condition, yet at the same time he didn't exactly have time to go. His desk was covered in documents and papers that he needed to take care of, the I.A. had meetings and continued to assign him tasks and duties that he felt needed to be fulfilled before he could carry on with whatever other work he found himself to do. It just so happened that things kept getting in his way. One day when he was sure he would have enough time to go to Mungos, he found himself summoned to an impromptu CIW meeting.

The night previous, he found himself exhausted in his home, it had been eleven o'clock at night slept, he ended up passing out on his bed, still wearing his ministry outfit and his face firmly planted into the pillow. He woke up at 4 in the morning, dazed and confused, he quickly sat up to the side of his bed, knowing that sitting up would make it harder for him to fall asleep again. He took a deep breath before breathlessly flicking his fingers and snapping his lights on. He was a mess and he could taste how badly his breath stunk and decided to take a shower. He used a vanishing spell to remove all of his clothes quickly, he brushed his teeth as he showered and felt as if he was saving some time. When all was finally done, he dressed himself in some plain trousers, a grey button up and a black coat. (which coincidentally were the same clothes he wore before he went to sleep, but don't tell anyone).

He was determined to see the girl this morning. And then he found himself sitting on his couch, blankly staring at ceiling, before closing his eyes and falling asleep for another 40 minutes, without even laying down. Then he got a Vibe that woke him immediately. The girl had just passed away. He jumped up from his couch and apparrated to St. Mungos, as if him getting there would help her. When he got there, he still had to climb a set up a stairs and used legilimency on a passing nurse to navigate her memories, he quickly found out where the girl had been held and made his way here. Just as he had gotten to her room, 215, they were wheeling her deceased body out, covered in a white blanket. Arthur stopped in his tracks, he froze for a second and looked at the corpse as it moved by. He couldn't help but release as sigh, his tired gaze to the floor again, his hands rested in his pockets, his jacket was undone, he had looked like someone who just lost a family member, yet he didn't even know the girl. She was still a kid. Though Arthur had no children of his own, he couldn't help but feel sad, somebody had just lost a daughter and somebody had just lost their life before they even got a proper chance to experience it.

As much as he wanted to stand around and think about how the ministry could have prevented this, he had a job to do. He quickly began using legilimency on anyone who seemed to belong to the establishment, surfing their minds and memories to find out as much as he could without drawing attention to himself. Nobody seemed to know much, but the person who seemed to come up most was "Doctor" Constance Kase. The fact that even wizards thought of her as "doctor" seemed out of place to him, she must have had some sort of muggle education as well. He moved to find her and find her he did.

She sat alone in the cafeteria, a cup of coffee in one hand and a file in front of her. Before he even came to her table, he read that she had known about as much as anyone else - almost nothing. He stood off to the side or a moment, thinking about how to approach this. Should he just go home? He was about to, until he thought about the file, even more so, Arthur himself was even a bit heart struck as he read her mind. She was dealing it with the child's death really badly. She felt bad and she was sad. Arthur felt sorry for her, but more than that, he felt respect for her, she was young and she was a doctor and she was handling things, as they were, pretty well. When he was her age, even though he hated thinking about how old he was getting, he was goofing off in Africa and brought people coffee for a living. He stood in line to buy a coffee, there were not surprisingly, few people at the hospital at such an hour, so he got his drink relatively quickly. He then hesitated once again, before making his way over to her table.

"Doctor Kase" He said calmly as he stopped right next to her. "I hope you're not too upset, Doctor Kase, do you have a minute? Mind if I sit?" He asked in a friendly and calm voice. "Why, thank you. he said, without giving her a chance to answer, he set down his coffee and sat down in the chair next to hers, at the table. "I understand it's been a hard morning for you, Doctor and I'm afraid I'm about to be rather rude and harden it even more." He was winging it at this point.

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Constance looked up as someone asked if they could sit, and then sat down anyway. She had no idea what he was there for or why he was about to make her morning harder, but it didn't matter-she was a professional. She sat up straight and looked up in the eyes, "Well, better just get to it then," she said firmly. There was no point dancing around subjects within a conversation. Heck, she barely even said hello to people when something really serious was going on. She slid the file on the table a little closer to her as she picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip, waiting on this new person to say what they came to say.

She really wanted to look at the file in front of her, but she figured it could wait a little longer. It didn't really make a difference medically what her bloodline was, especially now that she had passed, but it was good to know for the sake of any aurors or officials who came around asking about it. The hospital was, sadly, a popular place for reporters and investigators alike, especially because autopsies really could tell you a lot about how the person died which could be really helpful in a case.

Constance didn't mind helping out the aurors, she was happily dating one after all, but it sometimes was hard to give someone any amount of mourning time because people always came around asking questions. She was used to it, though, and knew it was necessary.  She did raise her eyebrows a little at the fact that he had called her 'Doctor', the other healers must have told him that she went by that here.

@lawl

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Before Arthur asked her anything, he brought his coffee cup up to his lips and took a long sip. He was actually buying a bit of time for himself, still thinking how to handle all of this. She seemed like a smart, professional young woman, so he had little fear that he had to tip toe around her, yet at the same time, he still felt sad for her. "Just one of those days, huh?" he commented with a slight undertone of friendliness in his voice as he set his coffee back on the table. He crossed his legs and sat up straight in the chair, his gaze still sitting on his cup as he pursed his lips for a moment. His gaze then quickly arrived to meet the doctor's and he began, almost nonchalantly, telling a story. As he spoke his arms folded in front his chest and as his eyes danced around from the doctor's eyes, to her cup, to her file and back to her eye's again.

"When I was a younger man, I was admitted to St. Mungos when a Salamander almost bit through my bone, while here, I developed a distinct dislike of healers and medicine, that, childishly enough, stayed with me to this day, I dread coming here. The smell, the atmosphere" He picked his cup up again as he finished his little story and took another sip."You will of course forgive me, doctor, I'm a bit tired."He leaned in closer to the table, setting his elbows onto it, uncrossing his legs and sighing deeply. He had the face of a man who had everything together, but deep inside he was tired and unsure of what to do anymore, in all aspects of his life.

"Should I be getting 8 hours of sleep in my age?"he began again, his eyes shooting back from his cup to the doctor's eyes "I always thought magic kept you young, but work keeps me up for ludicrous hours and I'm beginning to think it might be bad for me, haven't been to a real doctor's appointment in years."the only healers he routinely interacted with were the ones at the I.A. headquarters and they were more to the type to fix cuts, set bones and help you recover, not the type to tell you that you have type 2 diabetes or cancer. Can wizards even get cancer? Arthur hoped not. "My father died young, weak heart, you see," He told her, in a rather sweet voice "I was always afraid I'd inherit it, though heart attacks at a young age always seemed to be a distinctly muggle feature.

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She nodded as he seemed to humanize a little more by trying to connect with the day she had been having, "Been having those days a lot lately," she replied, running her fingers through her bangs. Constance had been the lead healer for the two students that had been killed at Hogwarts just this year. Something horrible was brewing, and she knew it. There was something big coming, she didn't know how long it would take to catch up to them, but she  couldn't help but sense that she, and her friends, would play a big part in it all. In the good, and the bad.

She smiled as he described his dislike for hospitals, "That's not an uncommon reaction," she chuckled. It was true that a lot of unpleasant experiences were tied to this place, for many people. It was no surprise that he was one of those people. Nor was it a surprise that he was tired. It was six in the morning, after all. "Didn't sleep well?" she asked, mostly to just be polite in response to his comment about being tired. "Eight hours is the best, yes. Though, I'm not sure I know how old you are, but it's pretty standard for everyone," she replied. Clearly he had not gotten enough sleep.

As he started to go off about his fathers health, and his own, Constance leaned forward, "That is a valid concern, you really should get it looked at every once in a while," she suggested, wrapping both hands around the coffee cup in front of her. "I, for one, am muggle born so it is a little more of an issue for me than for other wizards," she didn't know what his bloodline was, but he was implying that it was at least half and half.

@lawl

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"Haven't we all."

This entire year had seemed to be just "one of those days" to Arthur. Everything seemed to be going crazy. Not that he minded things actually being exciting for once, he just felt despaired over all of it. His seemed to be drawing to a close for him, yet deep inside he felt like he could achieve great things if the circumstances had been favourable. Often times he regretted not taking up all the offers that he got in life to do different things, but then he felt he would have simply regretted not doing what he did now. All of these deaths, all of these disappearances just made him feel that more powerless and insignificant, it drew more anger out of him towards the ministry than he had ever felt before, more anger towards the ICW and other governments. He wanted to do something, yet at the same time felt powerless.

"Oh good, I had hoped I wasn't the only crazy person" At least other people had the sense to hate hospitals too. Nothing good ever comes out of a hospital, every time you go to one you're either getting stitched up, seeing a loved one go through pain or losing someone, either way, things seemed to always be grim at St. Mungos, or other hospitals for that matter. "How can anybody sleep well these days," he remarked with concern "Makes you feel like we're back in those days, huh?" He added as he sipped his coffee, before quickly putting it back onto the table "Oh I'm sorry, you're a bit too young to remember those days, I keep forgetting I'm getting old." He corrected himself with a smile. Though behind that smile he felt a bit unease, although she was too young, to remember, Arthur would never forget it. He'll never forget Voldemort's sneer and laugher, he'll never forget the army of death eaters and dementors descending onto Hogwarts, the very thought of it made him anxious.

"Muggle-born, eh? I don't want to be prejudice, but as a muggle-born myself I feel as though unique people like you are only found among us." Sad, but true, must pure-blooded and half-blood wizards didn't have enough knowledge about the muggle world to develop the experience and understanding that people like Constance did. When Arthur came into power, that was the first thing he wanted to change. "Then again, it is often the muggle-born wizards who are found dead or dying, is it not?" He added in a more serious and concerned tone, his eyes dropping for a second to glance at the file in her hands.

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She nodded as he agreed that those days have been happening to everyone and everywhere as of late. Trouble was stirring, anyone who was looking could see that.  Constance was the kind of person who, during her school years, wanted nothing more than excitement and adrenaline. She wanted everything to be happening all at once. Now, she couldn't wish for anything other than for the world to slow down a little in order for peace to remain.

She chuckled a little as he mentioned his concern at being a crazy person. She had seen crazy people, and he was not it. She understood his figure of speech, however, that much was clear. Many children who had ever gotten stitches or worse had grown into hospital hating adults. It was very common. Hospitals always carried that darkness about them, even if you tried hard to focus on the healing and other good things that happened there.

She cocked an eyebrow at him, "You don't look that old to me, however, I did miss most of the worst days-you are right on that," Constance had grown up during a rare time of peace for the wizarding world-but she knew it wouldn't last. These last few months were a perfect example of that. "I wasn't even born until three or so years after the battle at Hogwarts. I missed all of that, but I did learn about it in school..." she hesitated for a moment, "were you there?" Some people thought it was a touchy subject, so she tread the path lightly on that question. She was not there, so she didn't really have as much trouble bringing it up. It was history to her.

"I do agree that muggle borns have a more... wide range of knowledge," she nodded. Some full blood families were so stingy about keeping muggles things away from their children. It didn't make for a well functioning society. At his next comment, Constance nodded with a sigh. "That does seem to be the problem," she glanced down at the file in front of her. "I just had a patient pass this morning, in fact... this is the blood work," she was more talking to herself than he now, "I'm too afraid to check if it's another muggle born."

@lawl

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He smiled as she mentioned that he didn't look that old. "Well, I'm not ancient, but I'm getting up there." He told her as he released a slightly chuckle and took another sip of his coffee. 38 wasn't that old, by many people's standards, he might have still been considered relatively young, but as it stood right now, he definitely didn't feel that way. It seemed like everyone around him was young, energetic, optimistic and still held a lot of youthful disposition towards everything, while Arthur was feeling the unavoidable approach of pessimism, grumpiness and a general feeling of lament towards his youth, he would often find himself missing the careless days of Hogwarts or the roaring excitement of his early 20's, compared to his current life, all of it seemed excited and fun, he missed those days more than he would ever let on.

The Battle of Hogwarts seemed to represent a huge passing from one era to the next. A cataclysmic event that would be written about in the history books, but to Arthur, it was just a painful memory from a time that seemed so distant and unimportant now. He nodded as he tipped his cup lightly to his lips, taking a small gulp of its contents . "I was," he said to her as he sucked his bottom lip for a minute, drying it of coffee . "Sordid business that was, hopefully you and the kids of this generation never have to experience anything like it. Voldemort is gone, so the worst is in the past" back then Arthur wasn't a bad duellist, so he held his own and fought off both dementors and a death eater, he survived, but some of his friends didn't. Regardless, he didn't dwell on it, thinking about it now won't change anything. Besides, since then, Arthur had gotten a chance to experience things that were more recent and almost as horrible, so it was quickly drowned out as just another, unlucky event in his life. Despite that, Arthur would for the rest of his life remember Voldemort and his evil cackle. He had no love for Voldemort, he certainly didn't believe or support his beliefs, but he couldn't help but hold just a tiny bit of respect for a man who managed to organize other people and throw the ministry onto it's back. What a life Voldemort had lived.

"They do!" he added with a laugh, putting his cup back on the table "I mean, most wizard born children don't even know what electricity is, it's 2022 for Merlin's sake!"He caught himself talking like a wizard-born, having spent so much time around them "Hogwart could do with a bit of a reform, I think." He added.

His smile and jest quickly disappeared however when the topic turned to that of the diseased young girl. He picked the cup up to his hands and held it in the air as he looked at the young doctor "Does it matter who she was? It won't change anything. Murder is murder, people die every day." His voice had become a bit more sombre, yet still understanding of the young woman, he sighed and quickly told her, in a hoarse and tired voice "You did all you could, Doctor, there was nothing you could do to save her life."

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She laughed, "Oh I doubt that you are getting ancient, Sir," she said. She was only twenty two however and she already felt old. She had worked so fast from a trainee to head of her department, she felt like she should be able to retire next year. But alas, she was married to her job. Well, for now at least. Her work life was slowly started to take second place in her mind, which was a scary process.

"I hope you're right," Constance stated as he said his hopes for her generation and the ones beneath her. "You must have been very young," she said in a soft voice. It was one thing to do the battle as a well practiced adult, but as a child? She couldn't imagine what that would have been like. It must have been truly traumatizing. That was a bust time for Saint Mungos both in physical injuries and mental, she had heard.

She nodded at his suggestion for  a Hogwarts reform, "I completely agree. It's about time those kids started learning how to live in both worlds. It's incredibly unwise, in my opinions, when their parents try to keep them as far away from muggle things as possible. It just isn't logical," she shook her head and rolled her eyes.

As the serious moment relating to her patient came upon them, Constance cocked an eyebrow at what he said next. She knew people died every day, but she still had to know the bloodline. It would be a perfect indicator if another murdering voldemort type was in their mists. "Thank you..." she muttered as he explained that she had done all she could. But how would he know that? He probably just assumed because she was a healer and they always tried their hardest, right? "But I have to know. I have to know because if that is three muggle borns in five months, then we have a serious issue on our hands," she said, confidence brewing in her tone.

@lawl