Taking a break (Adrián)

Wincing as she rubbed her feet through her socks, Bethany was taking a break on the first floor to rest for a bit from her volunteer shift. While she didn’t work there full time, it still meant a lot of time on standing even with comfortable trainers your feet started to hurt. Sighing, she slipped her shoe back on and retied it before slouching in the chair so her head was leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes. Normally she worked on the fourth floor of St. Mungos where she thought she could do the most good. With a brother like Basil who was prone to have chaos trail in his wake, Bethany was used to strange things that could happen. Then having gone to Hogwarts and seeing what else children could do to each other when they didn’t know what they were doing had this floor look more appealing. She had meant to pop down the reception area to let them know she was taking a break but just had to stop for a moment to massage her feet before even thinking of going outside.

Naturally that’s when she was asked to help assist with a patient. Sighing, she stood up and followed her superior while being filled in. A young boy had been brought in by his parents with twitching and thrashing muscles with unusual head and eye movements. The parents had apparently left their wands unattended and their precocious six year old had gotten a hold of one of the wands. While Bethany could have sworn at the parents for doing something like that, she had to admit that she had left her own wand unattended a time or two.  Jackson knew better than to try and play with it however after stressing the dangers of playing with a wand that wasn’t his. Then again, it did help to have brothers to at different end of the spectrums to use as examples of what to do and not to do.

Unfortunately, the child that was brought in while playing with his parents’ wands had been trying to imitate the wand movements he'd seen in Cinderella. The parents were both Muggleborns and so lived in a muggle area and had brought up their child as they had. The boy had managed to enlarge a scorpion that had stowed away in his suitcase. Alerted to their son's screams the parents had gone to the bedroom to find a rather larger than average scorpion and their son hunched on the floor in pain. The boy had begun to sweat and drool while they'd rushed him here as quick as they could before the other symptoms had started.

At least the parents had been level headed and had immediately iced the area to keep the poison from spreading. It was just the boy's bad luck that it was a poisonous scorpion rather than the usual harmless kind that had found a way into his open suitcase. The child had also been given muggle pain relievers and smartly they hadn't given their son any narcotics or given the child anything to eat or drink.

While the healer went to work on the boy, Bethany was in charge of the parents who were hovering and frankly weren't helping. Going into the room the woman made sure to present herself accordingly. Holding out her hand she shook the father's hand then the mother's as she introduced herself. “Good afternoon, my name Bethany Locke and I'll be assisting in your son's care today. Just so you know you did the right thing and you'll have your son home by night fall.”

There were relieved looks on the parents faces along with hope and probably more than a little guilt, worry, and surely they had been expecting the worst. That was something she could relate to. No parent wanted to see their child sick or hurt and when they were, you always expected the worst and felt responsible especially when you couldn’t do anything about it. Gesturing them to follow her outside while the other Healer was giving the boy an antivenom potion, Bethany smiled a little at the couple who were torn about leaving their son alone and talking to her to get any and all information they could. In the end they followed after her when she assured them that their son would be fine and was in capable hands.

“You were both very calm and rational keeping it together and that's what makes all the difference. Most parents wouldn't have thought to do what you had or to even bring the scorpion in that stung your son.” Bethany wasn’t sure she would have been so calm and collected had Jackson done something like that and it had been him who was reacting to a sting. To have the presence of mind to get the thing that caused your child’s condition. With the scorpion, the healer would have no trouble finding and administering the correct antivenom and the amount.

The father gave a shaky smile and ran a hand through his partially balding hair. His gray eyes were red rimmed and still a little watery. His wife's eyes equally showed the signs of her distress with the red and puffy eyes. “I – I didn't know what else to do. So I just got it in that jar while Jenna got to Stephen.”

Bethany reassured him, “You did good. Now, the healer with your son, with Stephen gave him an antivenom that will more than likely cause him to throw up, have a fever, and or a rash. That's common and it's nothing to be worried about.”

The couple nodded even though they again looked concerned but not as much as before. Giving them another sympathetic smile she gestured towards the lift. “Why don't you two go to the sixth floor have a bit of tea for your nerves, yeah? You'll be your best to help Stephen if you're not all frazzled around him. Don't freak out when he starts throwing up. Just treat him as you normally would when he's sick to help make him feel better; a story, cold compress, rubbing his back, the like.” Things she did for her own child when he was sick.

“But, I want to be there-” Began the woman while her husband cut her off and talked lowly to her, soothingly and reassuringly. Giving the couple an understanding look she offered, “Look, I'll stay with him until you get back. How does that sound?”

Taking her up on her offer only after a brief hesitation, the worried yet relieved parents went to the lift. A relieved sigh came from behind her and when Bethany turned around she wasn't that surprised to see the more experienced healer standing there. “You were brilliant as usual," she greeted with an exhausted smile.

"Oh, I don't know," Bethany teased him with amusement dancing not only across the smile that graced her face but that lit her eyes. "You never know what dangerous actions those kids will take when you threaten them with a potion."

At the mention of the parents, some of the merriment went from her, but she considered his question seriously. With everything that had happened, the parents had taken it rather well. Naturally and obviously they had been frightened but had common sense. They'd reacted quickly which Bethany had questioned herself about if she would have done the same. Whenever she saw any of the mothers here, she had doubts and fears just as she had when she had first gotten pregnant then given birth. What kind of a mother would she be? She had wanted so hard not to be her mother. That was a promise she had sworn and tried to never break. At least she had had support not turn out not so terribly bad as her own mother had been.

"Well enough. They did think they were going to lose there son due to their negligence." It was negligence no matter what they had done to save their son. They shouldn't have left their wands out, nor should the scorpion have had a chance to crawl into the suitcase. If they had been coming from somewhere where they were prevalent, it was again, common sense to double check everything to be sure that there were no surprises.

Instances like these had her questioning some of the conversations she'd had with fellow muggleborns or muggle raised halfbloods. She had been accused when she'd come to Hogwarts of not bothering to learn the history of the wizarding class, the etiquette, and the certain traditions that all muggleborns seemed ignorant. The parents while being muggleborns had attended a wizard school and knew how dangerous a wand was in the hands of the inept and unaware. Yes, she'd admitted she'd left her own wand unattended but that had been when Jackson was a baby, and she'd left the wand on a dresser or someplace he couldn't reach. While she had doubted a baby would be able to produce magic, she hadn't wanted to take chances and therefore kept it out of reach when she had him in her arms lest he think it a toy and grab it.

"So they're scared of that, but also had a fright because he could have died." Leaning against the counter she continued, "They want to be with him to reassure themselves that he's alive and okay." Nudging him she grinned again. "Which by the way, they know they have you to thank for that. Don't be surprised if they track you down. The woman looks like a hugger, so be prepared for that."

"Ah, so that's what everyone else is doing wrong?" It came out amused as she nodded in mock seriousness. "Bribing children, now why didn't I think of that?"

It was wonderful that potions had come so far. She remembered reading about how some potions couldn't be altered for taste because it would lose some of its potency. Thanks to experimenters though, a lot of children potions had been able to be slightly flavored and not in the gross way of most muggle medicines that made you loathe that flavor in the end. It was nice that someone like Adrián would give the boy a flavored potion rather than one that wasn't to make this unpleasant experience a bit more tolerable. Bethany knew the man's name because she had asked some of her friends at St.Mungo's who he was. She could appreciate a good looking man and Adrián was a good looking man. From what she had seen he was great with kids as well.

At the mention of what unsupervised children got into when you weren't looking she laughed a little. She knew that one all too well. From personal experience as a child and then with her own precocious son. She sobered again though at the mention of the wand and pursed her lips in agreement. Her eyes widened in surprise when he told her he was going to check on the parents and felt a bit of respect for this man. While some might think he was overdoing it and seeing something where there was nothing, Bethany knew that you had to check or you might miss something and regret it later. How many times had she wished people had come to her home but they never had? And from her own adopted brother's story... Pulled from her dark thoughts by Adrián's comment about saying thank you she smiled but tried to hide it.

"Have too many people wanting to personally thank you, do you?" She asked unable to contain the amusement. She could see that happening and while it was funny, she could see how it was bothersome. When asked about when her shift was over she shrugged helplessly. "My shift was technically already over a few hours ago, but one of the other volunteers couldn't come in and I told them I'd fill in. So..."

Checking her watch she groaned. "Another hour. And what about yourself Mr. Miracle worker?"

Bethany's lips twitched with held in laughter as her eyebrow rose at his choice of words. Bribery was bribery no matter how you tried to dress it up. Her eyes continued to dance with amusement and she nodded along to his reasoning before mock seriously asked, "And what if you get someone who doesn't like chocolate?"

How anyone could dislike chocolate was beyond her, but there were weird people like that out there. Of course they might have had an experience that left them rather disinclined to revisit that flavor. Much like Peter's girlfriend who had consumed chocolate liqueurs then promptly expelled them couldn't even look at chocolate without becoming ill.

At his expression that he was just doing his job, the woman gave a more considering look towards him as she thought about that. It had been his attitude of humbleness like that which had her watch him from the beginning. That and he seemed to genuinely like his job. There were those that she knew had lost the zeal and saw this as nothing but a job. Bethany had been curious to see if it was an act, or if he was generally a humble person or feigned that he was interested in the patients. From what she had observed and noted, he was very real in his emotions and dealings.

"Oh no," she replied only half serious with sounding as if she'd be horrified if this was her full time job. She had to laugh slightly at his guess and shook her head. She wondered what he would say if she told him that she was actually a teacher?

At the magic word of coffee, her eyes widened and she sincerely replied, "I would love a cuppa! Is the coffee any good here or is the only thing going for it that its really potent?"

((ooc: Ditto on it taking forever))

The woman nearly laughed at Adrian's 'not bribing' supply and didn't say anything while she was secretly amused. A tad impressed as well. Maybe she could get a few tips from him when it came to wrestling flavored potions down a cranky child's throat.

Almost offhand she replied to his query about her job. "Oh, I'm a teacher at Hogwarts." Moving onto the more relevant information as she followed him down the hall, Bethany teased, "And I suppose you just happen to be both of those?"

While Bethany could drink coffee any which way, she had learned to doctor it up if it needed it. Only recently had she begun to learn of the wonders that was cold iced or chilled flavored coffee. A fellow muggleborn volunteer had turned her onto the drink during the summer when Bethany had complained about needing coffee but not wanting to drink something hot on a hot day. Her only experience with cold coffee was when her mug went from lukewarm to cold because she had forgotten about said beverage.