welcome to chimera!

[Mildred Carpenter]

It was strange to be back at Hogwarts. Certainly, it was different than anything she had ever imagined finding herself doing, even when she had still been a student. She had been there only a day and she could tell that very little had changed about the school in five years, just as there was a sense, always, of very little having changed at all, even through centuries in the stone hallways. The portraits hung as they always had; the suits of armour creaked in the same way. The wizarding world, and its institutions were not greatly affected by the passage of time. Mildred was not sure, for the first time, whether she was comforted by the familiarity: it was more striking an observation here, even, than at St. Mungo's.

There was, all the same, a certain cheery bustle about Hogwarts.She was sitting in the hospital wing, glancing now and then out at the corridor as students in matching uniforms and robes tripped past, laughing and rushing for morning classes, holding their books tight against their chest. It was all just as it had been when she had been there five years ago, writing her NEWTs, laying about in the common room, sent to the hospital wing with a scraped knee. Except, of course, that everything was quite different.

Mildred had arrived at Hogwarts the previous evening, after the students were tucked into their dormitories. She had taken the train as her healers had been concerned about her stability to apparate, and the journey had been as odd as this, alone in a compartment as if she were returning for some delayed eight year.

Mildred was sitting on a chair in the hospital wing. Her luggage had been left in the room where she had stayed the night (more private than her bedroom as a student) but she held her wand tightly in her remaining hand in her lap. She was engaged, now and then in looking about the room - pristinely clean and far form barren - a few students were laid out on white sheets behind curtains, and she couldn't help imagining, as she glanced down the rows of beds, that the scope of their injury could not be great. It was not that she meant to be disparaging, but it was hard to be sitting amidst everything she had rationed so carefully overseas, now at the unending dispense of slightly battered school-children.

Thinking of her post in the war was a mistake, as usual, and Mildred shut her eyes briefly, turning in her chair slightly to stare at a far wall when she re-opened them, re-focusing herself. Helbert was supposed to return soon, to orient her, and despite her slightly un-gracious (and unsteady) train of thought, she couldn't help being impatient for something real to start on. At least these hospital beds weren't her own: that was a marked improvement.

[Helbert Spleen]

After tending to the student who had walked in half-way through his tour with Mildred with blood pouring from more orifices that Helbert wanted to name, he was eager to clean off his hands and shirt (and shoes) and return to the delicate seeming new hire. He was excited to have her around, not only because she seemed quite capable, but because she was young and easy enough to talk to and he missed that with a lot of the people he was usually around with.

Some part of him couldn't help but feel like he was doing her a favor, no matter how hard he tried to keep away from outright pity. He didn't want to pity her, didn't think she'd appreciate it and definitely didn't think she needed it. What he'd gotten to know of her so far was impressive and certainly not self-indulgent. Still, she was a one-armed nurse with no formal training and a tendency to be oddly skittish at seemingly random moments. Not exactly what everyone was looking to hire. Helbert knew trauma when he saw it, and although all his vocabulary provided to explain it was 'battle weariness' or 'shellshock', he felt as though that was a particularly inadequate way of explaining exactly what it was. He had seen it in students who had never been near a battle, albeit rarely.

Scolding himself strictly, however, whenever his thoughts strayed to just how generous he was being, Helbert came back to where she was seated with an easy smile. "Sorry about that, Miss Carpenter. I can show you around now. Hopefully no more bloody interruptions."

Pun entirely intended.

[Mildred Carpenter]

There was an abundance to Hogwarts that Mildred had not yet got used to - an abundance of bandages and potions and ingredients. There was an abundance of people - fresh and clean and cheerful - certainly. It was, in its way, refreshing, though not quite as much as it was strange. The child pouring blood had alarmed her - you got used to imagining that Hogwarts was safe and peaceful, but, of course, leave children anywhere - particularly children equipped with wands - and accidents cropped up. She believed Helbert more than capable of handling his job - despite having brought in her assistance - and had not interfered with his tending the patient, though she found it a little frustrating to wait, with nothing to do with herself.

She was anxious to work - and for that she was grateful to Helbert, even though he was right in assuming that she would not welcome pity. She was aware, reluctantly, that she would not be taken back at the front any time soon, and she had to do something with herself, while she was not there, or else she did think she might be a candidate for madness. All that in mind, she was smiling in return when Spleen finally returned. "It isn't a problem," she returned, , and she got to her feet, tucking her wand at her belt, "It's your job. What did he do?" She glanced back at where the student had been led earlier, in a rather alarming condition. Mildred had no doubt that Helbert had dealt with it, but couldn't help a curiosity: it was more than the bumps and bruises she had been envisioning.

[Helbert Spleen]

"Ingested some root he was not meant to,' he replied with a slight grin and directed her with a hovering hand somewhere in the vicinity of her back towards the back room where most of his supplies had been laid out. He had, before she arrived, proofed everything for her use by trying to deal and use everything with an arm behind his back. He had tweaked and prepped everything he could think of to make it easier on her, but he did not mention it either as he opened supply closets and pointed to important ingredients and off-handedly mentioned what they might cure. "Mostly it's just bumps and bruises and really serious cases we send off to Mungo's. One boy got his mouth cursed off. I don't actually like sending cases off to St. Mungo's."

He looked back at her and winked, although his pride in the matter was entirely serious. "Full of smug bastards, and I prefer not to give them the satisfaction, so do try your best before resorting to shipping off our patients."

[Mildred Carpenter]

Mildred followed with genuine interest, towards the back room, taking in his explanations with attentiveness. Again, the level of their privilege struck her; the school was equipped beyond what they could have hoped on the front. This she managed not to say, luckily, though it might have shown vaguely in her expression - if you knew her well enough to interpret it. Still, she paid close attention, standing a few steps in front of him. The healer's manner was as charming, she thought, as when they had first met - his good humour and patience not escaping her, even if she had a complicated relationship with generosity. She didn't need to take notes to remember where things were, or the procedures he described; Mildred was a quick learner, and had picked up on far patchier things with far less time available.

When he continued their conversation, she shook her head slightly, "I think i forgot how much trouble children could be," she admitted, honestly. From what she had seen - and just heard - in her first day here, the students were capable of injuring themselves as much as soldiers, if they had enough spare time. She understood the pride, objectively, and imagined that Spleen was capable to deal with most of what they would encounter, all the same. She knew that she would have been - if she had been operating at earlier speeds and efficiency. This thought she dismissed at once, continuing speaking instead, "I'll do my best. I think I usually do." She glanced around the storeroom absently, "Have you been at Hogwarts long?" Really, she didn't know a great deal about him, which made their situation unusual, if not uninteresting.

[Helbert Spleen]

"They are hormone-riddled cesspools of stupidity, and they are effectively armed,' he seemed to realize how awful that sounded and his grin turned a little sheepish, 'but they're our future, or something, so we do our best. But you'd be surprised the trouble the twerps can get into." He didn't want to give off the impression of being excessively bitter, especially to someone like Mildred in comparison to which his own regrets seemed petty and miniscule. "They're not all bad, though. By the nature of our work, we tend to see the worst or most reckless."

After a few more minutes spent showing her around the supply closet, he brought her back to the main room and seemed to do a quick tally in his head before responding. "Two, almost three years,' he replied and shrugged, 'it's felt like longer." His tone was one of slight surprise, as if he'd been genuinely expecting his answer to be closer to four or five. Sometimes Helbert, locked up in this Castle without much of a life to live outside his job, forgot he was so young. "And I'm sure your best will be just fine. We've a staff room I should show you, if you're up for the walk."

[Mildred Carpenter]

The harshness of his wording did surprise - though not offend - her. She wasn't used to things being softened, after all, but she was still new to thinking of the world in terms of children again, after years of living so far from anything even remotely childish. She glanced at him sidelong for a moment, as they moved. "Well they're only children. I'm sure we can keep them together." She didn't really mean to be condescending, but it was a little hard to avoid - even after he'd amended his first statement. It wasn't personal and she had no malicious intent to rudeness, but the sentiment came naturally, without needing consideration.

However, there was nothing else unfriendly about her manner, and she paid attention to his instructions with a careful, perceptive manner. At his last offer, she nodded, "Yes, I'm fine." She turned towards the door, underscoring this statement, "I don't remember ever knowing my way to a staff room." Most of the rest of Hogwarts, of course, she knew rather well- though from a different perspective.

[Helbert Spleen]

"Mmmm, well, I've managed so far,' equally Helbert didn't mean to sound put-off. There had been some real challenges he'd encountered here, thank you very much and while it probably didn't have the horror and desperation attached to it like the battlefield might, it was still worthy work...right? He sighed and moved on hurriedly, not wanting to prolong any sort of awkwardness.

He smiled and led her out the door, "It's a hidden entrance, to keep certain overly eager students from bothering the staff. You'd be surprised on how many over-achievers need clarifications on all sorts of points. I'm glad I haven't got to teach these kids anything."

Besides occasionally attempting to impart some simple healing spells on the more constantly injured. He felt like magical children must get injured more than muggle children. Muggle children split their head open and spent weeks in the hospital recovering and then learned from the experience. Magical children had it fixed in a second and learned absolutely nothing.

[Mildred Carpenter]

Mildred stared for a brief moment at this comment, but was also disinclined to dwell on discomfort of this sort - which was perhaps not her strong suit or greatest area of sensitivity. She simply nodded in vague agreement and stepped out the door. She had no doubt, of course, that Spleen was talented and clear well-organised and extremely well-intentioned. Her gratitude to him was genuine, as was her respect in general for his consciousness of the war. Mildred was not incapable of seeing all of this, though perhaps she was not the most expert at expressing it - in her current state.

She followed him towards the staff room, listening with interest. "I always thought I would hate being a teacher," she agreed, looking straight ahead down the corridor, as various students passed by with very limited interest for the two adults, "I remember thinking so, whenever my classes would get out of hand. But I also remember," she said with a vague-ish smile, "Thinking I would never come back to Hogwarts." She glanced at her companion, "We were here at the same time, weren't we?"

[Helbert Spleen]

"I didn't think I'd come back either,' he replied warmly enough, eager to let any hint of contention roll on by without note. It wasn't that he didn't understand Mildred's frustration. It was exactly the opposite; he understood it too well. Her tendency to accidental condescension only forced him to think about how this wasn't what he'd planned or had wanted in the long term and it made him defensive in a way he didn't quite like. "Merrythought's still here, if you can believe it. That old crow will outlive the castle."

He thought about the calculations and it didn't take him long to nod. "Yes, I believe you were a year or two under me, but I remember you." The reason he remembered her came to him a second later and had he been a lesser man, he might've blushed. In fact, Helbert could recall the first time he'd noticed her and it had been because she'd been in the library at the same time as him, seated under a window. The way the light had taken up with her cheekbones and the way she'd had her held tilted he remembered being quite impressed with how much she resembled some delicate, beautiful bird (without an aspect of beakishness, of course).

[Mildred Carpenter]

"I suppose it hasn't been so long," Mildred answered, almost thoughtfully, the hint of a smile- though significant - not lasting particularly long: her tendency towards humour not terribly lasting, though it had not been absent during the war, but perhaps a luxury of sorts, not to be dwelled on and often out of place. "The eldest students would have been here when I was." The thought struck her as strange, and she shook her head slightly, perhaps to clear it of the associations that came with thinking of what had distanced her from Hogwarts. She had no intention of displaying the extent of her instability on her first day at the school.

It surprised her when he said he remembered her, and she glanced at him as they walked. She was very much aware that she had not been a terribly distinguished girl, at a younger age, and even she could think of few things that had terribly distinguished her from her classmates. "Really? Then you're memory's better than mine," she admitted, "I remember your name, I think, but I'm afraid I might not have known your face." She didn't mean it as any impoliteness, but she was frank by nature, and it would have been strange and uncalled-for, to lie.

[Helbert Spleen]

It didn't surprise him. While Helbert had had his circle of friends and had been rather outgoing, he'd also been studious and driven. He hadn't left his group very often and even if he'd noted her prettiness he'd been too much of a petty teen to bother with some delicate girl much (relatively) younger than him. Helbert had a grand total of two sweethearts in his day, both of which had dumped him when they realized that beyond saying he had a girlfriend, he wasn't interested in much. "It's not much of a face,' he said to put her at ease and only secondly because self-deprecation came easily to him.

The last trip along a travelling staircase had them in the proper hallway and he led her towards a seemingly empty wall. Clearly and slowly so she might see what he did, he knocked in a way that triggered a charm not unlike what protected Diagon Alley and led her inside to the nice, open and richly - if tastefully - furnished staff room. He was pleased that no one else was there since, for the moment, he felt unwilling to share Mildred's company. "Of course the professors take their lunch often with the students, but we are not professors."

[Mildred Carpenter]

She shook her head slightly at his comment on his appearance, though she didn't contradict it, which would have been too directly flattering to occur to her, in their situation. By this time, they had arrived at the staff room, and Mildred looked in with an interest not quite intense, but passingly curious. Of course, there were many rooms in Hogwarts that she had never seen, but even so, this was a whole side of Hogwarts she had never even considered as a child. It was a trivial curiosity, but not entirely diminished for this fact. "Where do you have meals then?" she asked, when the thought occurred to her, glancing back at him. She didn't think she remembered usually seeing the healers at the high table, "Do you cook?" It seemed unlikely, at Hogwarts, but then she really knew very little about professor's time outside of the classroom, and even less about the larger faculty. She had never considered it before, though she now found herself at the centre of it.

[Helbert Spleen]

"Here, sometimes. In my office, mostly. I cook, but I haven't really since I got here. The elves get very nearly offended if they have to clean up a meal you've cooked yourself. They pester you about what's wrong with the food they make." He smiled at her and wondered briefly if cooking was a challenge for her.

"There's a cord in your room that allows you to call them at whatever time, but I always feel sort of bad if I let it run too late." For being a blood traitor, he'd still been raised entirely in the Wizarding world and as a Pureblood had those same ideas about elvish servitude most wizards and witches had - that they liked it, it was part of their nature and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. It didn't mean he condoned being cruel or ungrateful to the creatures, but only that he hardly felt bad ordering them about when needed.

[Mildred Carpenter]

"That's very luxurious," Mildred commented - the comment possibly a little disapproving, without her really considering the effect of such an opinion. She couldn't help thinking that Hogwarts life was particularly comfortable - too comfortable - after her time spent over seas, where you were lucky for full meals, and no one would have come running to deliver them at the tug of a cord. She didn't mean it as criticism of Spleen personally, though she didn't think, before saying it, that it could possibly come off as ungrateful.

She didn't have intrinsic objections, though, to the use of house elves, which was a fact of wizarding that she had been given far less reason to question, and so had never been overly critical of the arrangement. She was the sort of person who would be prone to be, if the problem presented itself to her in such terms, but her progressiveness, for now, was latched firmly to a certain, central idea. "Who are the other staff here now?" she asked, as it occurred to her that she wasn't aware how different the professors were now than they had been when she had studied at Hogwarts.