spellbxnd:
with: anyone where: outside the burning remnants of harriet’s clinic
It’d all happened so quickly. It was nearing two am; Harriet had almost finished up with her patients for the night, ready for her staff to come in and take over at three. There had been four patients inside her clinic at the time, two in the waiting room and two seated in separate examination rooms. She’d been with a tipsy teenager who’d stumbled in after a fall when the smell of smoke hit her and she realized something wasn’t right.
By the time she’d opened the door, the fire had spread up the hallway and already blocked off her office. “Everybody out!” She screamed, making a panicked move to help the limping teenager out first. The fire was violent, unforgiving and fast; it hadn’t even taken her twenty seconds to get the girl out the door before that examination room was up in flames. There was no way this was an accidental fire. The way it spread, it was magical and it was deliberate. And it terrified her.
The smoke made it hard to see and made her lungs feel like they were burning; she tried to stay low as the two in the waiting room ran for their lives, though she looked outside and noticed there were only three standing outside, watching the building go up in flames. There was another patient still inside. “Mira!” She yelled in between spluttered coughs - she held her shirt up to her face and ran back down the hall that was nearly overcome by the flames. The girl swung open a door, coughing just as badly as Harriet. She was deaf, she hadn’t heard Harriet calling for her. “Come on!” She yelled, not having time to sign, wrapping an arm around the girl and hauling her outside with the others. She felt dizzy, with all the smoke that she’d inhaled, but her patients were safe and that’s what mattered.
All that was left was for Harriet was to keel over and watch the clinic she’d worked so hard to build crumble to the ground.
-
Despite his best efforts, Dirk was late for work. Back at Hogwarts, he’d always been punctual, the first one seated at the Hufflepuff table for breakfast in the morning, especially in the first few years. But once he left school and started working, he stared being late. Late to being early at first, barely on time, to rushing through a crowd of people because he was five minutes late and still blocks away. This time he was rushing because he could see the plumes of smoke coming from the direction of the clinic. “No, no, please no.” It was said to no one in particular but he repeated it like a chant, like he could change reality with it.
Getting closer made it all the more obvious where the smoke was coming from and as he slowed to a stop, chest hurting from running in his much too tight binder, he could only stare at the fire for a second. His brain was malfunctioning, he could hardly focus long enough to think. By the time he could find one common thread, already having stalled out for a few minutes as he was frazzled, he had found Harriet on the ground.
Wordlessly, he moved to sit next to her, grim solidarity as he watched the building burn.
-
