Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I am not her.

"I don't have time to teach you, Mr. Davies." Poppy Pomfrey pursed her lips in annoyance. "You've come here for advice on books on healing. I've given you as much. You've come here to ask the occasional question on the material and usually I am happy to answer. But as much as you may wish it were otherwise, I don't have time to teach you healing."

"But there's nobody here!" Davies spread his arms wide to emphasise his point.

"The wing is quieter in the morning, true. Children tend to create less havoc while in class compared to the time they spend outside it. However, I need that time for administrative duties, brewing potions, research. That schedule is irregular, and I do have the occasional patient."

"Even better! I could practise on them."

Poppy glared at him so fiercely that he hastily took a few steps back and raised his hands as if to ward her off. "There will never come a day where I'll allow an amateur to experiment on my patients."

She took a deep breath to calm herself. "Why exactly, can you not wait to apply at St. Mungo's after sitting your N.E.W.T.s like everybody else with healer aspirations?"

"Because I can get a head start on some of them. Besides, like you said, I've read the books already."

Poppy closed her eyes and inwardly counted to ten. This discussion had been ongoing for the better part of an hour and her morning, the only time of day when she was somewhat guaranteed to have some peace and quiet was mostly over. It was a difficult situation, because she didn't want to discourage the youngster from his goal of becoming a healer. It was a noble profession, and St. Mungo's could use every single one with the skill to make it. But at the same time she truly did not have time for him.

Before she could resume the argument the doors slammed open against the wall. An unconscious Mr. Thomas was being levitated in by Mr. Finnigan. Turning her back on the ambitious Ravenclaw she made her way over to them with quick strides.

"Put him on the bed," she said, pointing, before waving her wand in the intricate motions of a general diagnostic spell-chain.

"Magical exhaustion," she concluded, her wand never stopping. "What happened?"

"Um," said Finnigan, switching between looking worried and sheepish. "He tried to summon something really heavy."

Poppy frowned. "Why didn't he stop when he got tired?"

Finnigan looked at his feet and mumbled something, reinforcing her belief that her new patient's unconscious state was the result of either recklessness or stupidity. "Speak up, Mr. Finnigan."

Finnigan swallowed. "There may have been a dare involved," he said, still not looking up.

Poppy grumbled and disappeared in her office to fetch a few potions. Merlin help her, but sometimes the students' rash actions got on her nerves.

"I'm quite sure I'll regret asking," she said while uncorking a vial, "but what exactly was Mr. Thomas attempting to summon on a dare?"

Finnigan's face coloured but he kept his mouth shut.

"I see. Did you think it was a good idea before Mr. Thomas attempted his summoning spell?"

Slowly he shook his head.

"Then why did you not think to stop him from injuring himself?"

Again, he mumbled something.
"I'm sorry, did you say something about it being fun?" Her voice, already clipped became harsh at the end causing the fourth year Gryffindor to cringe.

Poppy was all set to launch into an impressive tirade to maybe teach him to think before doing something idiotic when three more people entered her domain, though they did so under their own power.

"Sit and think," she said to Finnigan and pointed to a chair next to Mr. Thomas's bed. He hastily complied, allowing her to check on the new arrivals.

All three were upper year Slytherin students and they all sported cuts and bruises. One was looking rather dazed, possibly because where his ears used to be there were now iron chains, hanging down to his waist. They swayed with every movement of his head. One of the others was limping and wincing as he moved.

"We practised duelling with some of the Durmstrang students," the last one explained before she could ask.

Shaking her head she pointed each of them to separate beds.

Mr. Bole had a sprained ankle, which she quickly mended. Both he and Mr. Pucey had several lacerations that were easily fixed with some Essence of Dittany. A salve would mend most of the bruises before they could develop further.

Turning to Mr. Derrick, the owner of the overly large ear adornments she saw Davies administering him a potion.

"What in the blazes do you think you're doing?" she yelled causing him to jump.

"I gave him a vial of Wideye. He has a concussion," Davies said defensively.

"You are not a healer!"

She quickly started her diagnostic spell-chain again, following it up with several others. At first the results pointed that he did, indeed, have a concussion, but the more spells she cast, the clearer it became that there was something else.

"Get out," she said, distracted in between spells. Davies bristled, but she was having none of it. "He has unknown magic working on his brain. You fed him a potion without the faintest idea of how the two might interact. Get. Out."

Where before Derrick had looked merely dazed, he now looked glassy-eyed. That was definitely cause for alarm. Unsure what all was going on inside his head she shot a few quick identification spells at the chains on the outside. They weren't simple human transfigurations. Wonderful.

"What spell did this?" she asked the two he entered with. The two didn't immediately answer, but instead exchanged meaningful looks.

"Gentlemen, this is not a game," she said without a hint of humour in her voice. "What spell did this?"

Pucey sighed. "I hit him with Alligant Aures."

"Never heard of it. What does it do?"

Pucey looked uncomfortable. "It's supposed to transfigure the ears into chains, which wrap around anything nearby, tying the subject down."

She looked from him to her patient lying on the bed and back. "I take it it didn't work as intended."

He shook his head. "The chains are too short, for one. That, and they're not trying to tie themselves to anything."

He stopped and bit his lower lip.

"There's something you're not telling me." There was no doubt in Poppy's voice.

"One of the Durmstrang students hit him with something at the same time."

Poppy's eyes widened and she instantly turned to the patient, casting for minutes without stopping.

An obscure spell, miscast, not working as intended. A second unknown spell, interfering with the first. On top of that, a healing potion administered for an ailment that wasn't present. Oh yes, it was definitely one of those days.

Suddenly she narrowed her eyes. "Was your spell supposed to rupture the eardrums?"

Pucey raised both eyebrows, but instead of worried he now looked interested. "No, it wasn't."

Well, that was a clue. At least it didn't look like he was deteriorating any further. This would take a while. "Find out what spell your Durmstrang friend cast," she ordered the two Slytherins, before closing the curtains around the bed.

So many unknowns called for more invasive diagnostics. With a wave of her wand she vanished all her patient's clothes, leaving him naked. Making intricate movements she chanted in Latin for a few minutes. All the time her wand emitted tufts of grey smoke, which she directed and draped over his body. It took almost ten minutes, but finally he was covered completely and after another chant the smoke sunk in, as if absorbed by the skin. She closed her eyes and counted off seven deep breaths. On the final exhale she yanked her wand upwards. As if attached with invisible strings, the smoke emerged and followed her wand upwards, retaining the shape of the body it had been immersed in. The colour had lightened considerably to a pearly white.

Beads of sweat rolled down Poppy's brow. That was one hard spell to cast. Luckily there weren't too many occasions where she had to. Still, forging a smoke body didn't actually accomplish anything useful yet. It was what came next that would.

She shot an ancient spell at the boy, a precursor to the common diagnostic charms to find broken bones. When the spell hit the body it flashed a light grey. Immediately after so did the smoke. It was bright enough to force her to avert her eyes but it was over in moments. When she looked, Derrick was unchanged, but within the pearly white smoke body a skeleton was clearly outlined in darker lines.

Ignoring the rest for now, she carefully inspected the bones in his head. It took her fifteen minutes to diagnose that there were several tiny bones missing in the inner ear. She gave the rest of his body a cursory inspection – one could never predict the oddities of magic interaction – but it seemed as if the rest of his bones were all right.

Another ancient spell and another flash of light left the smoke imprint showing various soft tissues. Occasionally she would wave her hand through the smoke, causing it to part temporarily. That was the real strength of this spell: it allowed her to see inside organs, bones and tissue.

For over an hour she investigated her patient's head using the smoke replica. Five times she replaced the image in the smoke with something else. In every one of them it appeared there was something wrong in both inner ears. It appeared the chains didn't stop at the edge of his head. They had grown inward.

Finally, she cast another spell, on a hunch. Instead of showing dark lines, both inner ears started glowing with a merry grass green colour, though thankfully the rest of the body remained white.

Poppy closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Dark magic wounds. Wonderful.

She left the curtained-off area and gave a brief glance towards where Finnigan was still seated next to his unconscious friend looking thoroughly bored. Good. Maybe it would help curb their rash tendencies.

In her office she sank down in a comfortable chair. From a stack she withdrew a journal, taking care not to topple the unbalanced pile. Dipping a quill in ink she noted down her patient information, the diagnostics she'd completed, any info eyewitnesses had provided and finally her hypotheses. It was time for some research.

She penned a quick note for Irma Pince, requesting anything she had on the 'Alligant Aures' curse. Clutching the sheet of parchment, she marched over to the bored Gryffindor.

"Take this to the library and bring me back anything Madam Pince gives you." For a minute it looked like he would argue, but he seemed to think better of it and left quietly.

The moment he crossed the threshold she woke Mr. Thomas. He was groggy for a few minutes, but after a few sips of water he was looking more alert.

"Do you remember what happened, Mr. Thomas?"

He didn't say anything, but a flush crept up his cheeks.

"I see that you do. A summoning spell, of some sort, am I correct?" He nodded. "On something heavy." He bit his lip and nodded again. "On a dare." The last word was accompanied by a fierce glare, causing him to shrink back into the mattress.

"What possible reason could you have to value your pride over your health, Mr. Thomas?"

He looked down, and she let the uncomfortable silence linger.

Aside from fixing a great variety of ailments her job was to try and prevent them from occurring again. In many cases that implied beating common sense into the thick heads of children. Drawing out silences was a surprisingly effective technique. It forced them to think. A miracle in and of itself.

Mr. Finnigan returned, carrying several books. Behind him were two smaller girls clad in black and yellow. The oddity was that their hair was striped in similar colours, and one of them looked none too happy about it.

Poppy took the books and pointed to the chair he had vacated earlier. When she walked away she heard a muttered conversation start between the two friends.

"What can I do for you, Miss Hughes, Miss Graham?"

"Someone pranked her," said Hughes, waving in the general direction of the other girl's hair.

"I see. Did they get you too?"

"Oh no," she said brightly. "Sarah was upset so I charmed mine to look the same so she wouldn't be alone."

Poppy blinked. "Ah." She chose to ignore the girl's reasoning. "Let's see what I can do to put you to rights, hmm?"

A swish, jab and flick later she knew how the prank had worked. "You ingested a hair colouring potion, dear. Did someone give you something to drink? Something to eat?"

Her eyes widened in recognition before they flashed in anger. "Paul," she ground out from between clenched teeth.

"Not to worry, I have just the potion to change it back to normal."

From the cupboard she retrieved a general antidote that worked on almost all cosmetics and handed it over to the girl.

Suddenly she turned around. "Mr. Finnigan, you had better not be thinking about leaving just yet."

The boy, having almost made it to the door spluttered. "But I've been here for over an hour and I'm not even injured!"

Poppy tutted. "You were instrumental in leaving Mr. Thomas magically exhausted. And so far neither of you has gathered the courage to be anything but vague as to what you were up to. But by all means, if you feel unjustly held here I'm perfectly willing to take this matter to your head of house and suggest a week's worth of detention."

He swallowed and shook his head rapidly. "No, that's perfectly all right. I'll wait here with Dean."

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the two Hufflepuffs. Immediately she noticed that the vial was empty, but that Miss Graham's hair hadn't changed a bit.

"Strange," she muttered, "it doesn't appear to have worked."

"That's all right," Graham said quickly, "I gave it to her. Though it seems as if her hair hasn't changed back either."

Poppy blinked, closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. "You, who are under the influence of a potion, gave the general antidote I handed you to your friend, who is not, in fact, under the influence of a potion?"

She scrounged her nose. "But her hair is the same as mine."

Poppy threw her hands up in the air. "The antidote doesn't change your hair. It counteracts whatever potion you ingested." She pointed to the other girl. "Since she hasn't actually done that, the effects will be most unpredictable."

In a huff, she stalked off towards her office and the potions cupboard. She got out another vial of antidote, but continued sifting through the contents until she found an innocent potion known to produce a few boils. Marching over to her desk, she took a quill and crossed out what was written on the label, and instead wrote 'poison' in bold lettering."

Without a hint of a smile on her face Poppy handed the relabelled vial to the girl who was patting down her body anxiously, obviously looking for side-effects of drinking medicine not meant for her.

The girl frowned, then paled. "It... it says poison on the vial."

"Bottom's up," Poppy said with a fake bright smile.

"But I don't want to drink poison." Her bottom lip was trembling now.

"So you'll drink whatever your friend hands you even though she has no idea what it'll do, but if a certified healer tells you to drink a potion you hesitate?" She let that sink in for a few minutes.

The two girls both had tears in their eyes and looked very uncertain.

"Good," Poppy said briskly, "sit down on the bed."

They sat down next to each other and Poppy pulled up a chair for herself so she was on eye-level. She had intimidated them into listening. Now it was time for reflection and encouragement.

"If a healer gives you a potion, it is meant for you, not for your friend," she said gently. "In this case it is mostly harmless, but there are plenty of healing potions that can cause great harm if not administered properly. Do you understand?"

Both of them nodded, thoroughly cowed.

"The general antidote you drank works by nullifying a number of potions. When such a potion isn't present strange things can happen." She pointed to the vial in her hand. "That one causes boils. I normally cure it with the general antidote. In this case, we do the reverse and cure the general antidote with the boil potion."

Hughes nodded, but still looked uncertain. "So it isn't poison?"

Poppy chuckled. "Well technically its effects are negative – nobody likes boils – so it is a poison. But since you already drunk the antidote nothing will happen."

Her smile seemed to reassure the girl and her friend's hand on her shoulder seemed to give her courage. In a single gulp she drank the contents of the vial down.

"Yeeuch." She scrounged up her face and stuck out her tongue.

"Yes, it tastes quite awful." Poppy handed Miss Graham the other vial of general antidote and dispelled the charm on Miss Hughes. Within moments both had their natural hair colours back.

"There, all set," she declared. Both girls raced out of the Hospital Wing. She didn't think they'd ever again drink something without knowing what it would do first.

Squaring her shoulders, she marched for the two Gryffindors. A few spells later she concluded that Mr. Thomas was well enough to leave her domain.

"Right. I have more important things to do than babysit two idiots. So, I can either have someone else babysit you, or you can tell me the reasoning for your idiocy." She stood with her arms crossed, unwilling to move until they gave her an answer.

It was Mr. Thomas who caved first. "We were talking about flying without a broom. Seamus said it couldn't be done. I thought that if I summoned something really heavy I would fly towards it, instead of the other way around."

"Well I don't know about flying without a broom, but that is not the way the Summoning Charm works."

"It isn't?"

Poppy curbed the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose again. "Next time you decide to use a spell in a way it is not intended, you would do well to read up on it before experimenting. What if you had succeeded and this 'something heavy' came flying right at you? Or you at it?"

Both looked appropriately sheepish and chastised.

"More importantly, magical exhaustion should be avoided at all costs. If you feel yourself getting tired, stop what you're doing!"

She let that sink in before deciding to give them a break. "You should get plenty of rest, and are absolutely forbidden from using any more magic today. Go to dinner, then bed."

Both boys looked up, hopeful and she nodded her assent. "Away with you."

Happily they set out to do just that, but Poppy's voice stopped them just before the threshold. "Mr. Thomas, in your attempt to fly, what was it that you attempted to summon?"

His face reddened and he grinned, embarrassed. "The moon," he said before swiftly making his way out before she could say anything else.

Poppy stared after them in astonishment before shaking her head and heading into her office once more.

After dinner Pucey and Bole returned, delivering a single scrap of parchment on which was written the spell their Durmstrang compatriot had used. Without once inquiring after Derrick's health they left again.

Poppy spent her time researching. Meticulously she read up on the theory of the curses, looked over the Arithmancy behind them and hypothesised why and where the two had interfered.

One was based on general transfiguration with an animation charm to make chains from ears and then have them wrap around objects. The second was an eardrum rupturing curse with a very dark taint to it.

As far as she could figure, they had intersected and caused the chains to grow inward as well as outward, at cost of the animation part. That was a lucky coincidence. Had the chains started moving inside his head it would be an entirely different cauldron of plimpies. The dark taint was still present, which meant only healing the effects and not the underlying cause wasn't an option. Both spells had counter-curses, but she couldn't rely on either of them.

Until late in the evening, Poppy read, wrote and thought; discovering and dismissing spells. It was midnight when she was finally sure enough to attempt a cure.

For half an hour she stood over the body of the unconscious boy and cast ancient transfiguration reversal spells. Those she switched off with parts of a cleansing-ritual for Dark Arts practitioners. Latin was followed by Greek and Gaelic and her wand didn't still for more than a second.

Finally, with a sore throat from all the chanting and aching arms from gesturing so much she cast a single counter curse, recast the original curse and then cast the counter curse again. From that point, all she needed to do was heal the ruptured eardrums and regrow the earlobes which had mysteriously gone missing, even though the rest of his ears had returned. Draught Of the Living Death counteracted the Wideye potion that idiot Ravenclaw had fed him and the boy slipped from unconsciousness into a deep healing sleep.

With slow, weary steps Poppy made her way back to her office. Tiredly, she gathered all her notes, wrote a quick title sheet and bound the lot together. Walking over to a set of shelves filled with similar handwritten notes she was unsure where to file it. In the end she filed it under research for her Transfiguration Mastery, with references added to the Dark Arts and Arithmancy Mastery sections respectively.

Being a Healer was hard work. Being the only Healer in a school full of children more so. Facing new oddities of magic every day she'd almost gathered enough material for a Mastery in every field taught here. And a few that weren't.

Some days she despaired when, born of idiocy, children combined miscast spells in new ways not intended. And then came to her to get things fixed. Such was her job.

Though tiring and stressful, it was at the same time immensely rewarding. For she could do what others couldn't. She was the one they sought for help. She was the one who fixed things that went wrong.

A/N: Written for the Hunger Games Competition.

Thank you for your thoughts.
-brainthief