WHO: Siobhan Kennedy & Nona Pepper
WHAT: GET THIS MOTHERFUCKIN VIRUS OUTTA MY MOTHERFUCKIN' GAME
WHERE: St Mungo's
WHEN: Like three weeks ago. Before Saoirse's kidnap.
It was becoming painfully apparent to Siobhan, through the various reports that had been quite literally beginning to cave in on her at her desk, that this V2 virus was not losing any steam. Quite the opposite, in fact -- despite the quarantines that the Ministry of Magic had been trying to enforce, the virus was still making its way across the borders case by irritating case. Things were beginning to get desperate, and Siobhan could no longer sit around and watch her first (and probably only) chance at moving up in IMMIC slip through her fingers. She huffed, slamming the folder jam-packed with papers down onto the table in front of her. She’d gotten to the office first, thankfully -- nobody needed to see her flipping through her chaotic and messy chicken-scratch notes.
Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she’d forgotten to remove the bubblehead charm that she’d placed on herself for the purposes of walking through St. Mungo’s -- it looked quite comical on the tall woman, actually, and it was now more than ever that she’d probably remind her classmates of her old self. Fortunately, none of them were coming to this meeting - that was no mistake. She’d still been avoiding the other people from her year; making herself known to them had always seemed like a mistake, anyway. She glanced up toward the doorway, wondering just how long the other two were going to be. This was all she had on her plate today, sure, since this was IMMIC’s foremost crisis at the moment … but that didn’t mean she liked being kept waiting.
It was so invigorating not being sick. Nona had celebrated this news by essentially just running laps inside the house, and then having to sit down (perhaps be made to sit down… forcefully) soon thereafter because "not running a fever" was not quite as synonymous with "robustly healthy" as she would have liked. But her head was clearer than it had been in days, and she was absolutely certain the peculiar Muggle remedies Howell had shown her (or she had outrightly stolen off his person) were the source. They must have been, since Howell looked on his deathbed far more than she had, and he was recovering almost faster than she was. Not that she was miffed about that or anything, of course.
So naturally, she had reported her findings to her colleagues at St Mungo's, to lukewarm reception. Being that they had few other productive leads besides herself, since she was much better, they had little choice but to investigate. So she had badgered Howell into showing her the treasure trove of the Muggle grocery to buy more of these remedies, but had been slightly waylaid in her mission. Rows upon rows of small boxes with curious words on them like antihistamine and phenylephrine. Peculiarly-shaped bottles with brightly colored, ominous liquids and more funny-looking words. She had the ones Howell had given her (given!), but something called Lemsip also looked intriguing, and soon her basket was overflowing with things, including what these precious Muggles thought was a lozenge.
Without so much as a hallo, how-do-you-do, or batted eyelash, she threw open the door to the Potions & Plants offices and threw her overflowing sack onto the table. "I brought everything."
To be perfectly honest, Siobhan was glad to see that Nona wasn’t going to putter around being useless and shuffling papers. She beamed, starting to paw shamelessly through the things that the girl had brought in the sack. They all looked terribly -- foreign, as far as she was concerned. She raised an eyebrow at the other girl.
“Did someone try to sell you these off of the street?” She picked up a bag of lozenges and gave it a good shake, skeptical. “Half of this looks like it’s just sweets.” Still, who was she to really question anything right now? They were rapidly running out of options, and she had to bring something back to IMMIC.
“What makes you think these will work out so well, anyway? They didn’t exactly tell me much about your research.” Probably because they had been skeptical themselves, and hadn’t wanted the International Ministry to dismiss them immediately.
"They're not sweets, they're horrid," she said definitively. The one that said it was cherry flavour was telling the most abominable lie. "And I know they work well, because I used them on myself." After much yelling and snatching on the part of Saoirse and Howell, as she had evidently attempted to kill herself several times in the course of her dosage.
Nona dug her hands into the depths of the sack and pulled out a thick roll of parchment. "And I studied the recovery rate of the wizard H when ingesting several of these Muggle remedies on a fixed schedule." Unrolling it with a snap, she made a show of laying the packet on the desk. "This is his case file." Fishing further into her bag, she produced yet another roll, and repeated the procedure. "And this is observations on my own symptoms and subsequent recovery. It's very fascinating, and you will find it indisputably true that breaking the fever is directly related to ingesting these."
It was about time someone took Nona's proposition seriously—she'd only been dying on her sofa for the last three weeks.
Unfortunately, by the time that Nona had stated that the things were horrid (and she had indeed picked up the cherry ones), Siobhan had already popped one of them into her mouth. The face she made undoubtedly agreed with Nona’s conclusions regarding the taste, at least, but as it was (she was fairly certain) in her best interests to study the effects first-hand, she kept the thing determinedly in her mouth and furrowed her brows, concentrating more on the sensation. How very … odd. It worked almost like a numbing tonic. She crunched down on the thing and swallowed it before she spoke, one hand letting a fingertip trail rapidly down the parchment page as she read it over.
At least it looked thorough.
“Am I to assume the only reason that the other healers have been reluctant to look at your findings is because of their apprehensions regarding muggle apparati and not out of some sort of hidden flaw in your own research?” A bit of a petty thing to ask, perhaps, but -- well, she just wanted to be sure. “If it’s the former and not the latter, I will be happy to bring this to IMMIC and have more extensive trials arranged with willing volunteers.” Not wanting to be accused of trying to steal all the glory, she added a bit hastily, “Under your supervision, naturally.”
For a witch with a lesser ego than hers, such a comment might have incited anger, irritation, insecurity, or any other combination of unsavoury emotions. But since the idea of being academically flawed was nonexistent to her, she took no particular offence. "Obviously," she said, tilting her head and studying the redhead speculatively. "And there is an interdepartmental war going on between Magical Bugs and us, so the Heads believe we'll be laughed out of the hospital if we present Muggle remedies as the cure to the virus our prestigious and world-renowned team of Healers couldn't cure."
Looking not at all bothered by the situation, she moved on to examining her nails, "But I'm right, of course. Your trials will prove so." Then not quite being able to recall if her name began with a C or an S, Nona flashed her a brilliant smile. She could practically hear the lecture her brother would give her on being horribly rude and shuffled uncomfortably on one foot. But her name hadn't been used at all in conversation either, so Nona rather thought someone with as efficient a manner as this witch possessed would hardly care about such trivialities when there were more important things to be doing, like curing the masses.
Yes, that was most certainly it.
"Well, I will be available to help supervise," she said brightly, not caring for the credit as much as the precision required in testing such matters. "You've only to let me know when."
Siobhan couldn’t help her relief when the other woman managed to -- well, not become immediately offended at her little slip-up. Perhaps working with these healers, she thought optimistically, would benefit her after all. She nodded hastily and gathered up the stack of parchment, eager to go through the pile herself before presenting it to her superiors. If these muggle cures really were going to help end this epidemic, she wanted to be a part of it. In fact, she couldn’t help but feel a little smug about this latest lead of hers working out -- but she had to make sure she didn’t get too distracted just yet.
“Naturally, we’ll just have to stamp out the idea of something silly like an interdepartmental war when the health of the public is at stake, don’t you think?” Of course, Nona’s department would be considered the ‘winners’ if this cure of theirs did work, at least at St. Mungo’s … but she was sure the other woman knew that. She cleared her throat and glanced to the door, anxious and yet not wanting to appear rude. This girl was probably one of the few people she’d managed to get along with since arriving here, after all.
“Shall I take down your availability so that we can start as soon as possible? Time’s a wasting.”
Already lost in planning ahead for trial preparations, Nona simply nodded solemnly along to whatever it was Sh—Siobhan!, that was it—was saying.
It wasn't until she was halfway out the door that the fact that a question had even been asked registered. Craning around suddenly, Nona waved a careless hand. "Oh, I'm always around. Just owl me when you'll need me." She was far too busy to sleep like a normal person, of course. There was just too much to be done.
After a last beaming smile (which was really a curt nod from Nona), she let the door swing shut behind her, ready and eager to start on the steps toward their miraculous cure.
