The Healer | Part 3: The Survivors

Creature-Induced Injuries

George

She was whiter than I'd ever seen her before and the pool of blood between her legs was getting bigger and darker. Her skin was as cold as ice. I pressed my fingers to her neck desperately to feel for a pulse. There had to be one. She couldn't be gone. She just couldn't. She was everything to me, she'd promised she'd never leave me again.

'Mum!' I finally felt a pulse, but it was weak and slow. 'We need to go!'

The blasted music was still playing from the mobile phone on the night table. Even if I knew how to do it, I wasn't about to answer it any time soon.

'She hasn't delivered the placenta yet!' Mum exclaimed.

'What?' I roared.

I had no idea what the hell a placenta was. All I knew was that both of the babies were out. Even though they were much smaller than I'd been expecting them to be, they appeared healthy enough.

My wife needed help and I couldn't give it to her. Mum had already tried everything I would have and I wasn't in my right mind at the moment. Edith was the Healer, not us.

'I'm not waiting!' I stood, wrapped her in a blanket and scooped her up in my arms. 'I can't lose her!'

She was far lighter than she had been just a few hours ago. Too light. I felt my heart clench involuntarily. Bloody hell, what had I done?

Before either Mum or Fleur could stop me, I barrelled out of the room and down the steps. I fumbled with some Floo Powder in front of the fireplace. I didn't trust myself to Apparate now, she couldn't do it anyway. This way was safer.

'St. Mungo's Hospital!' I cried out and stepped into the flames.

Mercifully, the hospital wasn't very busy. I could hardly focus anyway. I only saw the other witches and wizards as obstacles. Edith was so limp in my arms. She needed help. Fast.

'Help! I need help!' I bellowed, but already the witch in the pink glasses was hurrying out from behind her desk.

'What's happened?' She asked.

'She's just delivered twins, she won't stop bleeding!' I answered, feeling my voice break.

'Second-floor, sir!' She gestured madly towards the stairs.

Second-floor, I couldn't remember what specialty that was. It didn't matter, she needed a Healer and I didn't care if we went to the appropriate floor or not. I took the stairs two at a time, trailing blood the whole way, a couple of nurses who had been hovering in the lobby trailing behind me, shouting things that I wasn't listening to.

I burst through the doors on the second-floor and the nurses caught up to me and ushered me into a vacant room. I placed Edith on the stretcher and only then did I realize that the nurses were asking me what happened.

'She... she's just delivered twins,' I stammered while one of the nurses stripped my wife of her clothing to find the source of the bleeding and the other ran back into the corridor, calling for more help. 'She started bleeding between the two babies and passed out shortly after the second was born.'

'Falconer?'

I wheeled around. A trainee Healer had entered the room dressed in a pale blue uniform. I recognized him at once without reading the name stitched into his shirt.

'White!' I exclaimed. One of my last encounters with him, I'd punched him in the face and broken his jaw over the woman laying unconscious on the stretcher.

I was torn. I practically hated the bloke but he was a Healer, and Edith desperately needed a Healer. As I looked at him the colour appeared to drain from his face.