A Test of Nerves

Healer Pomfrey stood up and led her around the back of the room, past where the other two were working at hidden desks, to a third desk surrounded by walls that came over her head. On Madam Pomfrey, they didn't reach more than halfway up her chest.

"Sit."

She sat.

The healer reached up to a shelf and pulled down a clear box.

Hermione's eyes widened. Her stomach lurched. Inside the box, a live mouse scurried around, putting its feet up on the see-through walls and sniffing the air.

Healer Pomfrey put on a glove, opened the box, and pointed her wand inside. "Stupefy." A tiny flash of red shot from the wand and hit the tiny rodent. Pomfrey then took out the now stunned mouse and lay it on the desk.

"Tell me what you see."

Hermione looked at the mouse. They weren't really doing this were they? This was a live animal! "Umm… it's a mouse, Healer Pomfrey. A stunned, live mouse."

"Correct, Miss Granger. Can you cast the stupefy spell?"

"Yes, Healer Pomfrey."

The healer looked up in surprise. "You can?"

"Yes."

Pomfrey put the mouse back in the box. "Enervate."

The mouse instantly started moving again.

"Please stun it."

Hermione obediently pointed her wand inside the box and said, "stupefy." A bright light shot out of the wand, hit the mouse, and shattered the box around it.

Healer Pomfrey picked a bit of box out of her hair. "Yes, thank you, Miss Granger. A bit less power next time, I think. Please remember that a mouse is not a fully grown wizard."

Hermione felt her cheeks heat up. "I-I'm sorry, I forgot."

The healer inspected the mouse, seemed to find nothing wrong, and put it back down on the desk. She pulled a pot plant towards herself. "Do you know what this is?"

Hermione started. She instantly recognised the leafy green plant. "Yes, it's huntsman's sorrow. We're growing it in herbology. It has healing properties."

"Good. And this?" Pomfrey pulled a box of brown powder towards herself.

"I don't know, Healer."

"This is dried and powdered huntsman's sorrow. Not as potent as fresh, but much more convenient and quicker to apply. Now, please watch carefully."

Hermione watched, half horrified, as the older witch pointed her wand at the stunned mouse and said, "diffindo." A gash opened in the mouse's thigh and red liquid instantly pooled in it and started trickling out.

Oh, Merlin. She put a hand over her mouth as her breakfast threaten to leave her.

Quick as a flash, Madam Pomfrey pointed her wand at the mouse with her right hand and said, "concrescat sanguinem," while reaching into the box of dried powder with her left. The blood started to instantly dry. She sprinkled a tiny amount of the powder on the wound and prodded it again with her wand in her right hand and intoned, "sano caro." The wound started to close, fresh blood stopped seeping through the quickly clotting blood, and in moments it was impossible to tell the mouse had even been cut.

Hermione let out a long held breath. She felt slightly light headed.

Healer Pomfrey turned to her. "So, how good do you think you are at the cutting charm?"

Hermione clutched the length of her expensive robes in a death grip. "Um. I don't know it, Healer Pomfrey. My lord didn't teach me yet."

Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "Then I suggest you get practising before your next lesson. Unless you want your patients to wind up like that box." She gestured to the destroyed pieces of see-through box that still littered the desk top.

Hermione took a deep shuddering breath. What had she expected? Healer training without squishiness? Without being responsible for the lives of others? It wasn't that she hadn't been expecting it. She just hadn't been expecting it on her first day ! She nodded, once. "Understood, Healer Pomfrey."

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