A brief conference in the wake of a false emergency
Date:BACKDATED to the night of the Ball, March the third
Time: Seven-thirty p.m.
Location: Outside the home of Mr. David Mason
Characters Involved: Geoff Archer and several other St. Mungo's interns
Rating: PG
There had been some discussion among the interns as to whether or not they ought to notify Dr. Burke concerning recent events, but there had been next-to-zero debate over who ought to do the telling. It was dark out, and the crickets were starting to sound throughout suburbia. They were all standing together on the corner of the block, beneath the tinny illumination from a Muggle streetlight and a cloud of smoke courtesy of one Geoff Archer.
Geoff was both the one they had selected to deliver the news and the only one of the interns that smoked cigarettes. He’d picked it up young, in the hot summers alleys behind the family store. He hadn’t so much been unable to kick it as he’d never really had the desire. He was an American, a native of New York City, and had somehow managed to fill his fellow interns’ heads with the notion that all the kids that grew up in Hell’s Kitchen started lighting up when they turned thirteen. He'd said it was like a Bar Mitzvah for Irish Catholics, he’d said.
All bull, of course, but none of them had been outside the country, much less through Clinton and Midtown West, so even those who had their doubts hadn’t bothered to call him on it.
Geoff was the only intern in the entire hospital that Deirdre Burke deigned to tolerate. He was an arrogant, cocky bastard and a bit of a cad, but he wasn’t as disgustingly idealistic as the other young healers, he took his job seriously, and he had the talent and intelligence to back up his occasional claims of medical perfection. For Dr. Burke---most of the time---perfection was enough.
For the moment, however, all of Geoff’s self-assuredness had been replaced with a grim resignation. He’d insisted that Burke would want to know about the recent development, no matter what sort of celebratory ball she was at. The others had protested, but their pleas to wait until the morning had subsided when he had clarified that he would be the one to brave the ball to fetch their superior.
After some murmured agreement (self-preserving cowards, Geoff thought distantly), he had Apparated to the Hogwarts grounds, and navigated his way through the trampled path to the party.
Time: Seven-thirty p.m.
Location: Outside the home of Mr. David Mason
Characters Involved: Geoff Archer and several other St. Mungo's interns
Rating: PG
There had been some discussion among the interns as to whether or not they ought to notify Dr. Burke concerning recent events, but there had been next-to-zero debate over who ought to do the telling. It was dark out, and the crickets were starting to sound throughout suburbia. They were all standing together on the corner of the block, beneath the tinny illumination from a Muggle streetlight and a cloud of smoke courtesy of one Geoff Archer.
Geoff was both the one they had selected to deliver the news and the only one of the interns that smoked cigarettes. He’d picked it up young, in the hot summers alleys behind the family store. He hadn’t so much been unable to kick it as he’d never really had the desire. He was an American, a native of New York City, and had somehow managed to fill his fellow interns’ heads with the notion that all the kids that grew up in Hell’s Kitchen started lighting up when they turned thirteen. He'd said it was like a Bar Mitzvah for Irish Catholics, he’d said.
All bull, of course, but none of them had been outside the country, much less through Clinton and Midtown West, so even those who had their doubts hadn’t bothered to call him on it.
Geoff was the only intern in the entire hospital that Deirdre Burke deigned to tolerate. He was an arrogant, cocky bastard and a bit of a cad, but he wasn’t as disgustingly idealistic as the other young healers, he took his job seriously, and he had the talent and intelligence to back up his occasional claims of medical perfection. For Dr. Burke---most of the time---perfection was enough.
For the moment, however, all of Geoff’s self-assuredness had been replaced with a grim resignation. He’d insisted that Burke would want to know about the recent development, no matter what sort of celebratory ball she was at. The others had protested, but their pleas to wait until the morning had subsided when he had clarified that he would be the one to brave the ball to fetch their superior.
After some murmured agreement (self-preserving cowards, Geoff thought distantly), he had Apparated to the Hogwarts grounds, and navigated his way through the trampled path to the party.