Occupational Hazards PV Amadea

St Mungo's Hospital
@Ami Procoppio

Since her graduation, Amadea had done significantly less than she had originally planned. Of course, the Hogwarts curriculum had been incredibly rigorous and she could sit around and blame burnout all she wanted, but after hearing the tales of her two closest friends and their successes playing professional Quidditch, Amadea couldn't help but be bummed out that she had decided to take a gap year.

Nevertheless, she had left the pity party behind and finally submitted her application to become a trainee healer at St. Mungo's. It was an honor she held close to her heart, especially knowing that her step-grandmother worked in this exact hospital. Every time she stepped into the entrance and saw the rickety wooden chairs that lined the reception room, she couldn't help but think of her step-grandmother standing in her exact place, the same amount of nerves coursing through her body.

Despite having completed her healer internship at Hogwarts and having her own experiences getting fixed up in the hospital wing after a particularly brutal duel, Amadea had very little hands-on experience with healing. In her first few weeks of training, she had shadowed a variety of nurses at the hospital, trying to pick up on their wisdom but mainly just trying to keep her head afloat.

Today as she prepared for the day, she quickly scanned the list of incoming patients and their maladies, looking for an easy case that could set off the day on the right foot. As she read, her eyes did a double take on a certain name on the list. It couldn't be...

Amadea squinted at the words in front of her in disbelief. But there it was. Ami Procoppio. Before even fully properly reading the other intake notes, Amadea was dashing toward the room. Her breath hitched as she entered the room. It had been a while since Amadea had seen her redheaded best friend but as her eyes fell upon the girl's body resting in the bed, she felt a pang of sadness. Ami looked the same as Amadea had always remembered her, albeit more battered, but something about seeing her friend look so small in a hospital bed made her heart hurt.

Of course, just as the thought crossed her mind, Ami began stirring. She mumbled something Amadea couldn't quite pick up before shooting up. "What the fuck happened? Holy shit, Dea, am I in the psych ward?"

Amadea rushed over to her friend's side and put a calming hand on her shoulder. "No, no," she reassured. "You're at St. Mungo's. It appears that you took quite the tumble in your last Quidditch game." Amadea looked down at the sheet in front of her quickly before addressing Ami again. "It looks like you fell off your broom and hit a goalpost," she said, wincing as she pictured the accident. "You've got a concussion, some bruised bones, but nothing is broken, so that's good. The fact that you're awake is a good sign. We can get you some Pepperup Potion to help clear the fogginess from the concussion and get you some Bruise Removal Paste for your bruising. We'll also have to keep you overnight to monitor the head injury in case of swelling, but it looks like you should be able to leave tomorrow."

Amadea cleared her throat, looking back up at Ami. It was odd to be here in the hospital with her friend; worlds colliding. "Now, why didn't you tell me you were coming to town?" she pestered.

Ah, St. Mungo’s. That made a lot more sense than a psych ward. Blinking a few times and rubbing the knocked-unconscious-induced sleep out of her eyes, Ami shifted herself so she was reclining slightly more comfortably against the pillows of the bed, stretching her arms and legs as Amadea gave her the quick rundown of how she ended up in the hospital… again. She disliked hospitals as much as the next average person, and brief flashes of her former Hogwarts teammates laying deathly still in the hospital wing of her alma mater danced through her head as the sterile stench of St. Mungo’s flooded her senses, reminding her of the darker side of Quidditch. She had felt so helpless then, having not been able to do enough to protect the teammates whom she had been entrusted to lead, but it certainly didn’t feel any better being the one lying in the bed this time. Why hadn’t she seen that bludger coming? She was a beater! It was her whole job to keep an eye on the bludgers.

Ami’s eyebrows shot up as Amadea mentioned the goalpost. The goalpost? That explained the slight ringing in her ears and the pounding in her head. She groaned and dropped her head in her hands, trying to remember exactly what had happened. One moment, she was racing towards a stray bludger heading towards their keeper, and the next, she was knocked clean off her broom. She could guess that she had accidentally gotten tunnel vision, and in her desperation to save their keeper, she hadn’t noticed the second bludger aimed right towards her.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Always the oblivious idiot. She was lucky that she was at least hot.

Ami leaned back in the bed as Amadea explained why she was still at St. Mungo’s, explaining that they would be keeping her overnight. Fine with her— she wasn’t sure she was particularly in the mood to cook dinner for herself, although knowing her and Cecily, they likely would’ve ordered takeout anyway. “Pepperup would be great,” Ami muttered darkly, eyeline fixated on her toes, which she was wiggling underneath the blanket. Damn, these beds were small. How were her legs this long? “I feel like I drank three bottles of firewhiskey and then got hit by an eighteen-wheeler.” The bruises would heal in due time, but the rattling of her brain in her skull was one of the least pleasant things she had experienced, besides maybe being set on fire. That also sucked.

When Amadea moved on from the official, professional stuff, Ami turned her head to look at her. She chuckled ruefully at her pointed question, running her hand through her hair with a grimace. “Well, I wasn’t supposed to be in town,” she explained with a strained laugh. “I promise I would’ve let you know if I had come back to visit my family at any point, but you know, practice and games and all that have been really crazy. But um, Holyhead was actually playing the Magpies, up in Montrose… but I guess they sent me here when they realized the head-knocking was too bad for them to deal with on site.”

Ami gestured to the hospital around her with a flick of her wrist, clearly ready to move on from the gory details of her recently acquired injury. “But this is new! I thought you were still taking it easy after graduation. When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell us you started working here? That’s huge news, Dea!” she exclaimed, her face splitting into her characteristic Cheshire-like grin. Of their friends, Amadea had always been the best practical spell-caster— only Adam could really compete in any capacity with her abilities. Ami had always turned to her for help with any spellwork she was attempting, even though having been roommates, Amadea had never been more than a few feet away when Ami was attempting to charm her hair for game days.

“We’ve gotta go get drinks to celebrate,” she continued. “Cecily can Floo down here, we’ll send an owl to Adam… This is seriously huge! I can’t believe this is how I found out. Cecily’s gonna be pissed I heard this before her.” Clearing her throat and lowering her voice a little, realizing she had been borderline shouting in the quiet wing, she added, “How have you been, anyway? I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve gotten a chance to chat and catch up.”

St Mungo's Hospital
@Ami Procoppio

Amadea perched herself at the edge of Ami's bed as the girl slowly began to come to. She was trying her best to make sure she observed all of the necessary signs that could potentially indicate something worse was going on with Ami's health, but she was admittedly a little distracted seeing one of her closest friends laying in front of her. It was as if her worlds were colliding, professional and personal coming together right before her eyes and Amadea was unsure of quite how to handle the situation.

“I feel like I drank three bottles of firewhiskey and then got hit by an eighteen-wheeler.” Amadea couldn't help but chuckle at her friend's colorful description of her physical state. Ami never failed to give a sincerely entertaining take on whatever situation they were in. Amadea went to the side of the room where they stored all of the basic remedies and pulled open the drawer labeled with the recently made Pepperup Potions, carefully inspecting the label and making sure it was the proper red color before handing it over to Ami.

"Here you go," she said, handing the potion over. "Oh, and don't be alarmed if smoke comes out of your ears, that is a normal side effect." Amadea found that patients often became worried from the regular side effects of the potions they were given; of course, it wasn't normal to have gases emanating from one's head, so it made sense, but all of the studying about medicines and remedies had made Amadea slightly immune to the shock of side effects. Despite her own immunity, she always made sure to remind patients of them.

Amadea nodded, listening to Ami explain the situation. She had never been to Montrose, but from what she knew, it was a fairly remote town and she wasn't surprised that they wouldn't have the capacity or resources to deal with a fairly gnarly Quidditch injury. "I suppose it would be insensitive of me to say I'm glad you got hurt, but I am nevertheless glad to see you," Amadea said with a wry grin.

She nodded at Ami. "Oh, yeah I was taking a gap year after graduation since I wasn't quite sure exactly what it was that I wanted to do," she explained. "But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to go into Healing. So I started applying to a bunch of programs around the area and somehow got accepted here at St. Mungo's." She paused. It was really a miracle that she had gotten this internship. After all, she knew it was incredibly competitive and it was an honor every day to be able to work in the same hospital as her step-grandmother.

"It's definitely a ton of work," she added. "I thought Hogwarts had a hefty courseload and homework schedule but in comparison now, it seems like nothing." She shook her head, reminiscing over the naive young girl she had been when she thought a Hogwarts schedule was hard to manage. Between the hours of studying, the days of hands-on experience and shadowing, and the intensive exams that made NEWTS look like a walk in the park, Amadea was surprised that she had even made it this far.

"It's actually kind of wild," she rambled on. "There have been a fair amount of people that have already dropped out of the program. I guess it makes sense; we see so many different types of injuries every day and there's so much studying, but it just seems worth it to me, I don't know. It feels like I'm finally exactly where I'm supposed to be, ya know?" It was cringy, but true.

"Anyway! How are you?" she asked Ami, realizing she had been rambling about herself for a while. "How's Quidditch...besides this obviously? And how's Cecily? Aren't you guys playing for the same team?"

Amadea, ever the careful and caring friend, immediately went to retrieve some Pepperup, which Ami took from her outstretched hand with a world-class grimace. It wasn’t a particularly nice potion, but she trusted that Amadea wouldn’t have handed it over if she didn’t actually need it. She sniffed the bottle distrustingly before steeling her nerve and dumping it all down the hatch in one fell swoop. The viscous liquid burned her throat in a manner that bordered on unpleasant, but she managed to swallow it all. Admittedly, she felt better immediately, but she could feel the pressure building in her ears as the aforementioned smoke and steam started to leak out. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath, her eyes squeezing shut as she let the unpleasant side effect pass.

Ami opened her eyes and focused on Amadea as she explained her winding path to St. Mungo’s. The healing really did make sense. Not only was Amadea an exceedingly talented and bright witch, but she had a kind and compassionate heart that was truly exemplary, even among Hufflepuffs. Even if Ami hadn’t been a longtime friend, she was sure that Amadea treated each and every patient with the same gentle care that she was currently experiencing. “You’re going to be a great Healer,” Ami assured her as Amadea talked about the daunting amount of work. “Out of everyone I’d trust with my life, health, and general well-being… Well, you’re definitely at the top of the list. You’re definitely where you’re meant to be.” And she meant every word of it. Ami was not one to tell a white lie to save a friend’s feelings, but there weren’t any words in the English language that she knew that could fully encompass just how much she believed in Amadea. More than she believed in herself or even Cecily, she believed that Amadea was exactly where she was meant to be.

Amadea pivoted quickly to Ami’s favorite topic: herself. “Oh, I’m fantastic,” she said with a grin, gesturing to her lanky form sprawled across the bed. “Current state aside, I’m doing great. The Harpies have been kind of the same as your medical training, a lot of work that was a real steep learning curve and definitely a huge adjustment, but super rewarding. I feel really rewarded too, when I make a good hit or have a really nice save. But you know, it’s only been a couple of seasons, and I’m still riding the bench a good amount… but I’ll get there one day.” Her tone strayed into slightly-doubtful from her usual self-assured lilt, but there was an undercurrent of determination and stubbornness that certainly portrayed the amount of work she was willing to put in to achieve her goal.

And Cecily! “Cecily’s great!” she added. “We’re living together, since you know, rent’s crazy everywhere, even in Holyhead… But yeah, we’re both playing for the Harpies. It just made sense, you know? Although we definitely spend an unhealthy amount of time with each other, to be completely honest. You know, living together, working together, kind of having a lot of the same friends… But anyway, you should definitely come visit, if you ever get any time off. We have an incredibly comfortable couch that you get first dibs on, of course, and Leo would love to see you again. I think. I don’t know, I still can’t talk to cats, although he seems to think I can.”

Stretching her comically lanky arms, Ami stifled a yawn and a wince as she could feel the muscles in her back started to settle into this week’s soreness. “Say, how long do you think I’ll be in here for?” she asked suddenly, the Pepperup certainly living up to its intended effects. “I’m getting a little antsy, if I’m honest… We should grab a drink whenever your shift’s over. And I should probably let Cecily know that I’m alive and well. And my captain, I guess.” She looked around the room for a fireplace, adding, “Maybe you could Floo over to Montrose and let her know yourself! Or probably at least send her an owl, Montrose isn’t too far from here… I guess I should let her know I’ll be staying the night, if need be. What do you think, doc?” A saucy wink accompanied the last question. “Have I been a good enough patient? Or do I need to be kept here a bit longer?”

St Mungo's Hospital
@Ami Procoppio

Amadea tried not to stare too closely as she handed the potion to her friend, trying to find the right balance between rightful concern and avoiding freaking Ami out by ogling. In typical Ami fashion, she downed the entire thing in one gulp, though with its peppery, cinnamon-like flavor, Amadea reasoned that it wasn't entirely different from taking a Fireball shot.

“You’re going to be a great Healer. Out of everyone I’d trust with my life, health, and general well-being… Well, you’re definitely at the top of the list. You’re definitely where you’re meant to be,” Ami was saying. As much as the words resonated with Amadea, a words of affirmation woman at heart, steam had begun emanating from Ami's ears -- the classic Pepperup potion side effect -- and was succeeding in making the moment significantly less serious and meaningful.

"Thanks Ami, that means a lot," Amadea said, hoping her gratitude was visible in her words. Healing was a tough field, and at least weekly Amadea questioned her decision to follow this path. She was grateful that she wasn't the only one who saw potential.

Amadea nodded along as Ami talked about the Harpies. She had never been one for sports, let alone Quidditch. If she was being completely honest, she wasn't quite sure she had ever outgrown her fear of flying. Maybe it was because she was Muggle born, but flying around on a stick about the width of her arm didn't seem fun at all. In fact, it seemed more like a death wish than anything remotely close to fun. But for Ami, professional Quidditch made perfect sense. Amadea wasn't sure she had seen the girl sit down long enough to read a single page of their textbooks back in school, and hearing about the adventures of being on a professional Quidditch team seemed to fit Ami's energy levels perfectly.

"It sounds like you're having a blast!" Amadea smiled. "I'm glad that you've found your niche in Quidditch. I just hope that I don't find you here again in the future." As much as she loved that her best friend had found the perfect career, Amadea also couldn't help but worry. Enough sustained Quidditch injuries could take a toll on the body, even with magic's advanced healing powers.

Amadea tried not to widen her eyes too much as Ami divulged the news that she and Cecily were living together. It hadn't been that long since they'd broken up, right? To be fair, it was on good terms and all, but Amadea figured it must still be awkward to live with an ex. Of course, as a perpetually single individual, she had no place to comment on the situation. Plus, rent was astronomical.

"I would love to come visit!" Amadea said. "It's always so crazy busy here, but maybe in the summer I can spare a weekend off. I would love to see your place. Though you know how I feel about Leo. I think cats and I were never meant to be in the same vicinity." She shuddered to think of the thought. Of course, there were certain cats that were amenable, but Leo was a beast of a different kind. She would never say that to Ami out loud, though.

As Ami pivoted back toward medical topics, Amadea blinked back to reality. Right. She was at her job; she should focus on the task at hand: healing. She cleared her throat and gave Ami a quick onceover. The girl seemed to be feeling much better after the potion and paste combo. "You definitely seem to be much better than when I came over here," she said. "Because of the potion and concussion we will have to keep you overnight just to monitor and make sure things don't get worse. Plus, there's the smoke which would be a bit of an inconvenience if we were to send you off now. I can make sure an owl gets to Cecily and your captain with the news; would you like me to grab you a quill and some parchment so you can write it yourself? I'll add in a note at the end too so she knows everything is alright."

Amadea stood, looking around for the materials. "I would love to catch up after my shift! Perhaps tomorrow once you're discharged we can grab a brew if you're feeling up for it. There's still so much more we have to catch up on!"