Ranko glanced back at being addressed, and looked over the group doing it. The only person she knew in that group was Kodachi. Was she another fugitive from Nerima? The only way to know was to ask, she guessed. But that could wait til later. "My mother insisted that I take extra lessons. We're going to another class."
Hermione checked over her own group of friends and bravely hefted her books, declaring. "Then we'll go with you."
Kodachi and Ginny, having met Hermione on the train and since made friends, gave her this one for free and supported her, mostly out of curiosity. Lavender Brown and Susan Bones went along with this mostly because the other two did, and girls being what girls were, two more looked as if they might follow along for the ride.
"Come along then, we haven't got much time." Ranko said over her shoulder before starting to walk away at the head of her little group, the additionals quickly following.
The dozen girls all came around to the Hospital Wing at a quick pace, arriving just a hair after another group, consisting of Dumbledore and a very old Auror. That man had scars on top of his scars, walked with a wooden leg, and had a vivid, electric blue eye that rolled about ceaselessly, twitching in every possible direction. That man had his wand out and appeared threatening as he approached Nodoka, who was just finishing up with some bandages on a mummified patient. "Ranko-chan, be a dear and wait patiently, will you? Another customer just showed up at the last moment, but I'll be done in a second."
The younger Miss Malfoy relaxed, leaning back casually against a wall. "It's not me, mom."
Snipping off the end of a roll, Nodoka turned about and saw the man advancing on her. "Oh! Albus brought me another customer! How nice." Seeming to teleport across the forty intervening feet and catching the scarred man's wand just as he was about to raise it, she effortlessly disarmed the auror and subdued him about as casually as a seasoned mother did a wiggling infant, wrestling him onto a bed before stunning him.
"There, there. You're not the first auror to get second thoughts at this stage. Don't worry, I'll have you fixed up in no time. My! You are a specimen, aren't you? So many scars! But I think I'll start with that leg..."
Still leaning casually against a wall, Ranko leaned forward to smooth her skirts and told the eleven girls with her. "Mom hid as a muggle for twenty years, and to do that you've got to have a muggle job. She started as a student at a junior college because she didn't know anything and a student's job is to learn. After a couple of years just taking electives and soft classes she told me she decided to start learning some more of what muggles know that wizards didn't, and got into pre-med. That worked out so well that she just followed it all the way through to become a reconstructive surgeon. By then she knew enough about life as a muggle to quit and claim a stock portfolio and investments supported her. But mom says that she couldn't let it go, and started to combine magic spells with muggle know how to get really good results. All summer she's been offering to fix up old aurors and guys wounded in the last war, and just bill the Ministry, who owes them medical care anyway."
By now Nodoka had effortlessly stripped her new patient and was giving him a cursory examination. The guy looked like a clay model of a human that got dropped into a blender and only roughly stuck back together by someone who didn't care much about accuracy and was in a terrible rush. Nodoka clicked her tongue. "Well, those scars are all bad enough, but I still think we'll start with that leg."
First off she cast an Engorgement Charm on the upper portion of his severed leg, doubling the size of that limb. Then with quick, neat Severing Charms, after a quick Numbing Jinx, of course, started dividing the extra skin, fat and muscle into surgically precise chunks which she then had reassembled into a lower limb in moments. Stretching Charms were used on the nerves, blood vessels and tendons to get them running through the new area. Ligaments, cartilage and other components were found, doubled, harvested, reattached, and the new bits put into place for the lower leg she'd been forming. In moments she had rebuilt the entire limb, putting scars to rights as she did so. Finally, she wrapped that whole leg up in bandages and force-fed her patient doses of blood replenishing potion and Skele-Gro.
It was with almost brutal practicality she then went forth and began rearranging skin, fat and muscle, plus bone where necessary, all over the rest of the man's stunned body to even out the scars and correct old injuries. When she was done the old guy looked almost, not quite but almost, ruggedly handsome.
It was over in two minutes, tops, and as Nodoka was tying off the final bandages around her mummified patient, she began apologizing. "I'm sorry there's nothing I can do for the eye. I've been experimenting with Twinning Charms to replace lost lungs and kidneys, but I'm still having some trouble with organs in general. They're so tricky! You won't feel well over the next few days, but I'll ask Madam Pomphrey to transfer you over to St. Mungo's so they can dose you as needed with the required potions and watch over you. You'll be right as rain in a few weeks, better than you have been in years, I'm sure. Just do make sure to stay off that leg for at least seven days. It's been through quite an ordeal and won't bear your weight until it's healed some. I'm afraid every inch of it has just been injured, inside and out. But once it's had some potions and rest it will be bearing you about in no time. In a few months your body will have replaced enough tissue so that you'll be in no danger of having those charms canceled, though for a week or so it'll be ugly, if it happened. Chow!"
She stuck the man's wand through his chest bandage, with a little note attached with her care instructions for the Healers at St. Mungo's to read, ending with bundling up his clothes as a little package by the end of his feet. Then she turned about to face the little flock of a dozen girls, smiling brilliantly. "Well, now that's done we can move on to our lesson! But Ranko, who are these other girls?"
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(Posted Wed, 10 Aug 2005 22:40)
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