Love, Somebody ~ Marauder's Era AU

Chapter 27 | maeve laughs and cries. in exactly that order.

"I want a progress report owled to me every two hours, even if it's nothing," instructed Rachel after allocating a mission to each of them. "The Undersecretaries to the Minister usually hold a press conference at nine in the morning. Rita, you can take that along with Maeve. The rest of you help me put things together. Go."

They went.

Maeve floo'd herself to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries due to the unavailability of her wand, journal and filled-quill in her hand like weapons for a battle. The hospital was alive with people. Noise settled at every nook and corner. Wizards and witches in grey robes moved around patients with a variety of aliments effortlessly with a clipboard in their hands.

Maeve's eyes swept the crowd until she identified one of the other journalists and marched towards him. "Have they been brought here?"

"Some, yes," the man replied, chewing on the back of his quill. "Grey's gone to get information."

"I'm back, I'm back!" Grey, presumably, announced as she wandered to where Maeve stood. "Okay, so we don't have an exact number of those injured yet. The medi-witches said there was quite a rumble of ruins from where they had to fish the victims out of."

Although Maeve's palm flew to cover her mouth, the gasp escaped. The other two didn't call her out for it, both sporting grim expressions.

"Yeah, that was my reaction too," confessed Grey, and bit her lip. "I checked. They've gotten three people till now, none of whom are unconscious. There are four of us now—Appleby's in the toilet—so why don't the three of us here take one victim each, check up on them and wait for them to wake up? Anyone new can be given to Appleby."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Maeve and the other man agreed. With that plan, they split themselves up.

The person Maeve was given had been rushed into surgery. Maeve sat on the cool, steal chair in the waiting room for a healer to exit. Appleby came by after the surgery crossed the two-hour mark to remind Maeve to keep Rachel in the circle and to give her dinner and coffee, bought from the hospital cafe. When Maeve asked Appleby if they found another victim, Appleby thinned his lips and shook his head. Maeve's stomach clenched like fists.

Somewhere past the three-hour mark, the glass doors paved way for the healers to stroll out of. Maeve jumped to her feet. "How are they?"

"The surgery went well," assured one of the healers, and Maeve remembered that doctors could only give general assessments about their patients to the press. "Thankfully, not many complications arose. We were worried about her losing too much blood, but we managed to stop it."

"That's a relief," intoned Maeve, shoulders slumping in solace.

The healer mirrored her expression. "We expect her to regain consciousness in a few hours. Once she's stable, and if she permits it, you can talk to her. Otherwise, our medi-witches will have to escort you out. We don't want to upset the patient."

"Of course, I understand. Thank you so much," responded Maeve, to which the healer nodded his head before the band of doctors strolled away. Vaguely, she heard them ask one of the medi-witches behind the desk if the patient's guardian had arrived yet only to be told she didn't have any. Maeve ached for the victim as she returned to her seat. It felt like she was struggling to swallow down a still-beating heart.

The girl was transported to her own room. Maeve sat on one of the chairs that lined the wall outside. She managed to send reports after the span of every two hours writing about the victim's condition but fell asleep with her head against the wallpaper at around the three-thirty mark in the morning.