Of Broken Bones and Brittle Flesh... Compelte

Why couldn't students just... scrape their knee? Break an arm falling from a tree? No, students needed to be immolated. They needed to march to the hospital wing without escort. No, @Dealla Prince might have been there. The flesh torn from him. The clothes burnt into his flesh. The child hardly looked human, the concern was -- is he still alive?

"Merlin!" it was the first and only thing that the poor nurse muttered upon seeing the burnt wreckage of a boy that entered the Hospital Wing. What could have possibly happened? How was he even standing! The later answered for her when she looked at this eyes, there was nothing there. Locomotion without cognizance. Magic being an everyday part of the nurse's existence, it was merely an additional step in the assessment process. Information was still limited, sometimes contradicting and oftentimes untrue. The where and the how a mystery more times than not, due to a liar on the cot or the burden of memory being too much for others.

Where muggles depend tonics and injections, she depended on a wand. Canceling the enchantment that made the boy walk was an elementary task. However the same could not be said for the blackened flesh. The boy would fall when the power of locomotion and the command of balance were taken from his unconscious form. However he would not fall, the boy had suffered enough for one day. Caught and carried with a firm gentleness and a lump in the nurse's throat.

This one might be dead.

A real possibility as she struggled to find a pulse on the boy in the fresh, clean, white cot. She could not find a pulse. An ear to the chest, she could not hear a heartbeat either. Well, none besides her own as it pounded in her ears. But she saw it, eyes level with his chest a single fall and rise. Had he been breathing this whole time? A chill ran through her.

From standing at the door to laying in bed. Victor was not heavy, not at all. Something that the nurse would discover when she caught Victor and prevented him from falling. It was as if there was nothing inside - no blood nor flesh nor bone. His body, despite being pulled from a literal fire would feel ice cold to the nurse.

She would search for a pulse - a radial. No. A brachial. No. A carotid. No. He was so badly burned, there was no blood flow, just cooked meat. She would listen for a heartbeat, no stethoscope. She had little hope of hearing him. His blood pressure, hardly life sustaining if at all. That faint patter, if there was any sound at all would be below her detection.

But she would see it, the rise and fall of Victor's chest. He was alive or at least some semblance of 'living.' The tiny boy, yes there was no much to him was indeed alive but she would need to work quickly to make sure that it stayed that way. Not that Victor would know any different as he laid there unaware. The last thing he remembered was the heat and the pain, the fear and the desperation. The utter and complete disappointment. The festering resentment that would spread like a virus infecting the sweet lad.

The nurse knew what to do. The risks and the dangers. Yes, just move her wand a few inches and say the right word and everything would get better. No, it did not work that way even if she wished it did. Not this. This would not be quick. This was magical and she did not even know what sort of magic accomplished this feat. The children so loved their Incendio, reckless and dangerous with its use, they barely considered the consequences. Why would they? Magic made almost everything better. It could even make one forget how they suffered.

That was merely her first presumption. She was not entirely wrong. A child does not burn themselves to this point inadvertently. Someone else has to do the burning. This child looked like someone threw him into the broiler and left for the afternoon. She shook her head and let out a tsk'ing noise with her tongue. "Episkey" not nearly enough to bring the boy back but it was an idle hope. It helped a little, but not as much as the nurse had hoped for. The boy had been battered, his joints out of socket. If one had not known better they might have thought the boy had been beaten with rocks.

Victor lay battered and broken on the cot. His twisted and mangled form, a reflection of not only the flames but of his descent to the ground. His shoulder hit the grass and displaced. His ankle twisted and broke. His hip joint had come out of socket.

His broken leg more apparent as the rest of his body begun to straighten. It was a grotesque display as the Slytherin's body convulsed on top of the bedspread. The shoulder too high would slide and then lock back into socket with a loud SNAP! The hip would rise and fall, a wet-sounding click to signify that it was back in place. The ankle that had been walked on was not right. That was not quite the ankle joint, that being just a we-bit lower. No, that was the lower leg, fractured clean through and displaced. Comminuted as well, there was a little bit of white, that was not a fortunate bit of his white suit but actually a sharp shard of bone that would retreat into his leg. It was not mended. No, it was still there broken, merely in alignment.

He took another breath. Yes, his breaths were quite some time apart.

Disgusting yet effective. His bone - that was his tibia and fibula retreated back inside of him. she shuddered. She was not one to get used to that sort of thing, not that she thankfully saw it often. His shoulder and his hip would pop back into place leaving still the matter of a broken bone that was previously unrecognized. Thankfully the boy was unconscious, walking on that would have been incredibly painful. Same with the shoulder and the hip, however she was not aware that it was common for those joints to be displaced. The boy was chronically ill, just not under her care and in this state she was not even able to recognize him by looks alone.

Next was the setting of the bones. "Ferula," she uttered with the intent of repairing the broken leg. Simple, easy healing. Better than chugging some skelegrow even if the limb would be sore for some time.

The longer the boy remained unconscious, the more time she had to heal him before she had to endure his screams. There would be no escaping it, the terrible sounds that he was going to make. She did not even want to think about that.

It was just the bone in the leg, well the bones. They would start to knit tether, unseen by the trained medic's eye. There was a sense of understanding and trust that had to be applied with medicine. Indeed, his bones were good. Well, 'good' was a strong word to describe anything to do with Victor's health, but his bones were where they belonged. it was the rest of him that still required a great deal of care. More care than perhaps the nurse was equipped to provide.

There was still the matter of the wounds, where his flesh was ripped apart. Areas of open, raw flesh exposed to the air. There was still the deep and terrible burns. That damage was already done. There was more than healing, there was saving and returning both form and function to the boy, neither of which would be immediate or easy things to acquire.

Of course additional help was on the way. Little did Victor know, Vladimir had just finished conversing with the Professor of Charms and was on his way to the Hospital Wing himself. Certainly a long walk, the same walk that Victor had taken. No breath was taken by Victor.

He could not drink a potion, she had to reply on her wand to get the most she could out of the healing effect. The bones mended. The displaced and no longer conjoined were united in their intended fashion. Then came the more dangerous, well not 'dangerous' but rather unpleasant considerations. He was not breathing, or she had not noticed him breathe in some time. Not that she could tell if his lips had turned blue. If he had become cyanotic. If it was merely an oversight.

That was a limitation of wizards in terms of medicine. While they had means to quickly heal, they had limited means of assessment. In many regards she was in the dark ages of medicine, using her witt and her intuition to lead her along the best path. No x-ray machine. No centrifuge to spin bloods. No electrocardiography monitor to show the pitter-patter of his little heart. No oximetry to tell her how well he is breathing or even if he is breathing. No capnography.

This is where she also started to hold her breath. "Vulnera Sanentur" a healing spell to heal the rips in his flesh. Perhaps repair some of his broken body as well.

They had entered the castle, many of the students were directed to the Great Hall. That was perfect for the two of them. Those that were not in the great hall were likely headed towards the infirmary. They were going to neither. Not yet at the very least. "Mary, go to the dorms and get yourself a change of clothes and wash up," Vladimir instructed. Why? The answer was simple of course. as he peered into the Hospital Wing simply to be certain that she was actually there. "Most of the snakes are elsewhere, get a chance of clothes and get washed up," it was her chance to avoid the Slytherins. A rare opportunity that she should take. It was near the end of the school year, she only had to make it a few more weeks and then she would be free for a little while.

"I am going to put my bag away and get washed myself, take a look at the scrapes I got. I should be fine, I will meet you in front of your common room," he offered and then parted paths with Marion just outside the Infirmary. He chose here for a reason, to first and foremost make certain that Victor was here. Secondly, to show Marion that he was here so that she would be willing to part with him for a short time.

Marion had started to calm after they left the Quidditch Pitch, but she was still crying at seemingly random intervals. She was as distraught as one might expect considering the fact that she saw one of her best friends get burned alive and many of her classmates either indifferent to his suffering or more concerned with stealing his stuff. How little did someone have to value life to think like that? She wondered.

She had apologized and then thanked Vladimir several times during their walk. Her feet were in pain, the shoes she had wore to the ball were not intended for this sort of action. She did not even realize that she was holding Vladimir's hand, it was a safety net. A feeling of safety and security. They would reach the threshold of the Medical Wing and they would stop.

Go back to Slytherin, get changed. Get cleaned up. "But why?" An obvious question, a tone of debate in her voice. "We just got here," a true statement. The nurse was working on Victor. He was not moving. Her eyes welled up again, it was a constant cycle of crying alternating with a feeling of hollow exhaustion.

Because the snakes were gone. A rare chance for her to return and feel at least somewhat safe. There was still a chance that someone was going to be there. That someone was going to hurt her. It was a selfish notion really, to be worried about herself in a time like this.

He was going to go too. It was not as if they could do anything to help him. She lingered a bit longer and looked in. "Yeah," she concluded. there was a lack of passion as she released his hand. "I will try to get some of his stuff too if I can," she sighed.