The rota for the Emergency Wing had come, as every year, they had new interns, new people that would learn the inner workings of the job and that might decide to stay at the department, as her and her colleagues had.
She didn’t see the names, she didn’t want to be biased, besides it was a busy morning with the elderly people that came in with a sort of normal ache and a need for a conversation.
Taking the next chart she looked at the lady’s history and moved to where the new trainees were and stopped on her tracks as soon as she saw the blonde hair she knew so well. “Cissa?” she asked surprised.
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Narcissa couldn’t help but feel nervous. She knew she was prepared for this; she had gotten everything she had needed to become a Healer while she was at Hogwarts. But now…now all that remained was an overwhelming fear that she wouldn’t be able to do it. That she wasn’t right for this. That she wouldn’t be good at it…that her mother was right.
She almost jumped when she heard the nickname, turning. Her eyes widened a bit when she saw her sister. The sister she hadn’t seen since she was ten years old. “Andy…” she breathed quietly.
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Andromeda didn’t think she would get to see Narcissa again, she loved her little sister and she knew that leaving was her decision, but she still missed Cissa like the first day she was separated from her family.
“Are you–” she didn’t finish the sentence as she saw the uniform, and then she saw the name of her intern ‘Narcissa Black’, she thought it had to be a cruel joke from the universe to set them up like this, she didn’t want to hurt her sister, but she understood in Cissa’s perspective she already had done the worse she could.
“I can request they change you to another healer if you prefer.” she added softly, making sure Narcissa understood that everything that would happen between them was her choice, even non talking. No matter how hard Andromeda wanted to reconnect.
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Narcissa glanced down to the name on her sister’s robes and then back up at her, her eyes still slightly larger than normal with surprise. She remembered the day her sister left much more vividly than any ten year old likely would have remember something of lesser value. But it had been especially hard for her. She had considered herself close to Andromeda until that point, and had felt betrayed that she hadn’t felt she could trust her. Though, she had only been ten…who had ever trusted a ten year old with a secret as big as Andy’s had been?
“No,” she said quickly before taking in a shaky breath. She gave her sister the tiniest of smiles and took in a breath to calm her fluttering heart. “No, I would like to learn from you. It…it might be fitting.”
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Andromeda hated that she left and her sister had no way of knowing how hard the situation was, how difficult it was to make that choice. She tried writing, but either Narcissa didn’t want to know about her, or mother had been screening the mail. Eventually she just assumed that every Black didn’t want anything to do with her, but Sirius.
“Of course, I just know it must be difficult.” she admitted, “If at any point it is too much just let me know.” she didn’t want to push Narcissa’s limits, she wanted to talk, to hug her, to tell her that they were still sister in her heart, even if their parents said otherwise, but it was too much. Andromeda knew it. “I was thinking we could start simple, we get a lot of people through these doors and new healers can get overwhelmed.” she explained handling Narcissa a simple case from the pile. She did that with every resident, and then built them up to harder cases.
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Narcissa frowned a little bit at her sister’s words, pursing her lips and fighting the urge to roll her eyes. There is was. The same thing everyone did. People took one look at her and just expected her to be weak. Expected that she couldn’t handle the tough things. “I think I can handle it,” she said a little coldly, opening the file her sister had handed her. Despite the fact that people always underestimated her, she still hated it. Hadn’t she spent enough years showing people how capable she was? Getting top grades in almost every course at Hogwarts, very nearly becoming Head Girl. She had spent time assisting Madame Pomfrey as well during her sixth and seventh years.
“I…I hear you have a daughter,” she said quietly, not raising her eyes from the file. They were in a work environment and yet she still couldn’t help how wrong this felt. She knew their parents wouldn’t be happy to hear she had been in contact with Andromeda. It would probably act as an excuse to pull her out of the training program and get her settled with Lucius.
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Andromeda knew the frown and she chuckled before she stopped herself, it was good to know that in spite of the years there was still some familiarity to them, even if it was something silly as a frown. “I meant because of our relationship.” she explained, letting her sister know she wasn’t doubting her abilities but it was a lot to take in for her first day at the Emergency Room. “I do this with all my interns, Cissa, this work is not like the others, some cases get to be a lot, and I don’t want my students to lose their will on the first hour so I take a few cases to warm them up before throwing them in the deep end.” she explained, hoping her sister understood this wasn’t something she did because of who she was, but how the job could throw you off.
The chart was about an elderly lady, she used to tend to some plants and most times she forgot to put on gloves. The lady came once a month, she was talkative and sweet and the case wasn’t exactly easy to solve, since the plants’ effect needed some special handling, but it wasn’t as nasty as it could be.
“I do, she is eight, I have pictures, if you wish to see them later.” she offered, maybe Narcissa didn’t want to see Dora, but she wasn’t going to say no to the first time they spoke in years.
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Narcissa quickly averted her eyes at those words, a blush creeping up her neck in slight embarrassment. Of course that was what she meant. She felt a little silly now for becoming so defensive so quickly. “Oh,” she breathed quietly, trying to keep the embarrassment from her voice. She didn’t know why it was so much harder to try and hide her emotions from Andromeda. She hadn’t seen her in years––it certainly would make sense for her to be able to be colder to her, but it seemed that was not the case. “That makes sense,” she said after taking a deep breath in an effort to gain control over her emotions once more.
She studied the chart quietly for a moment, raising her eyebrows a bit. This certainly didn’t sound too difficult. And she had gotten an O in her NEWT level Herbology class––it was one of the classes she was more naturally talented in than others. “What kind of plant was this?” she asked her sister, not looking up from the chart.
Narcissa looked up in surprise at those words, her eyebrows raised. “Eight?” she asked. “So she would have been born not long after…” Not long after she had left. Maybe that was part of the reason Andromeda had run off so suddenly with the Mud…Ted. “I would love to see pictures of her.” She would have loved to tell her sister about Draco as well, but she wasn’t entirely sure if she could trust her yet.
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Andromeda chuckled at the blush, of course Narcissa would be proud and demand her space at the job, it was what they would do, stand tall and do what was expected and more, but she didn’t doubt Narcissa had the knowledge to solve the case, but she was wondering what she might do with a half blood and how would he people skill translate in the real world. After all, you didn’t get to choose your patients.
“That is for you to find out, usually she makes balms for herself and her husband, and likes to collect rare samples from colorful plants.” she added, “she is a regular.” it was a sweet old lady, didn’t mean she was always bright about forgetting her gloves.
“Yes, eight, last June. Mother never liked when I gained weight.” she replied, knowing Narcissa would put two and two together and know Dora was on the way when Andromeda left the house.
At the request for the photo she took it out of her robes, and showed the little girl with changing hair color and two missing front teeth in front of a cake. “This one is from her birthday.”
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Narcissa continued to look over the file silently, trying to memorise the information in it. She barely even blinked at the fact that the woman was a halfblood. While she, like many Purebloods, was raised to believe in the superiority of her blood, and taught to look down on others who didn’t possess it, she didn’t believe it was appropriate for her to discriminate in this kind of setting––a place that was supposed to help anyone regardless of blood or heritage. And over the years, she had come to the conclusion that she really didn’t care. Hadn’t she been friends with Remus for a while during school? He was a Halfblood. But it, obviously, was something she kept to herself around family and others.
“A lot of colourful plants are poisonous…” Narcissa murmured as she looked over the description of the event that led to the woman’s hospitalisation. “Not all, of course, but many.
Narcissa tensed a little bit at the mention of their mother and her dislike of any weight gain in their daughters. As far as she could tell, it had never bothered Bellatrix, and it seemed Andy hadn’t minded much either. But Narcissa had had difficulties with her mother’s critical eye. Her face fell and she cleared her throat, keeping her eyes averted from her sisters.
After a moment, it clicked in her mind what she had said and she finally looked up at Andromeda in surprise. “Last June?” she asked in shock. “So…at Hogwarts…?”
She took the photo gently from her sister, smiling at it a bit. Dora looked quite a bit like Andromeda did in the family photos that Narcissa had stashed away from her family from before Andromeda was cast out. “She’s a Metamorphagus…” she said slowly as she noticed the changing hair colour.
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Andromeda nodded at her sister’s reasoning, of course many were poisonous, that is why she was worried the lady had a bad reaction, but if they were deadly she would have been dead already. “This is why we need to thread carefully, we don’t want to make it worse, we need to take into consideration something that can be used in a wide spread variety and try to pin point it.” she offered.
Druella made a mess of Andromeda, during the first half of her life she was tied up on being the daughter her mother would be proud up, but as she grew up she understood that Druella was never going to be that woman. There was still some part of her that wanted her mother’s approval but she tried to push it down, as being the best wife and mother was all she needed to do.
“Yeah, that is the main reason I left.” she offered, hoping that Narcissa would understand, “She would have made me get rid of Dora, and… I couldn’t bare the thought.” she admitted and then smiled proudly at that. “She is, she can do much more than change her hair color, but she’s still young, she doesn’t control it much.”
